Japan's No 1 Man
by Crok Darven
Summary: Mitsuru goes to Mikage-cho to visit an old acquaintance of her family to ask him a favor for the well being of her employees at one of her companies. This acquaintance self proclaims himself as Japan's number one man. -Reviews are welcome-
1. A Group's Alliance

The light of the moon shining through the limo's window reflecting on Mitsuru's eyes was, as always, a bright yet unsettling light that she started to dislike after an event three years ago in her years of high school. However, the silence of the night and the cold wind always made her calm in contrast to the more noisy daytime of the city with cars running rampant, construction workers making daily noises with their tools and machinery and the sirens of ambulances and police cars. All insuferable noises in front of her CEO office in the Kirijo Group's building, her house is at the outskirts of the city so she gets a break once in a while unlike her friend Yukari living in an apartment in the middle of Tokyo due to her modeling and actress career. The thought of her friend makes her reminiscence of the bonds she had when she was younger, mostly one person in particular that made her the mature and independent person she is now but is no longer with them.

"Miss Kirijo..." -said the driver- "We're almost there."

"Understood, thank you."

Today she had a meeting with a person she respected but had a bit of bad blood with him. She always thought of him as self-centered and without a hint of humor, only a stuck up man in his early thirties... then again she couldn't say much considering she sees herself that way as well sometimes.

Today was February 12, 2012, the man she was going to visit was none other than the head of the Nanjo Group, Kei Nanjo, self proclaimed Japan's number one man and with good reason, his company was one of the more important business in the world and of course at the top of Japan's economy with the Kirijo Group being slightly below them.

"Miss Kirijo, we're here."

"Thank you."

While stepping out of the car Mitsuru found herself in front of a mansion at the outskirts of Mikage-cho, a well illumated entrance with a decorated door that had a butterfly engraved on the doorknob.

"Mitsuru Kirijo, am I correct?" -said a middle aged buttler recieving in the entrance of the mansion.

"Yes, I'm here to see Nanjo."

"Certainly, master Nanjo has been expecting you. Please, this way, follow me."

"Thank you."

While entering the mansion Mitsuru found herself in a big hall with buttlers greeting her with only a handful of maids there as well, a big difference to her house which is full of maids with little to no buttlers. She noticed that all of them had at least a gold butterfly motif accessory with them, buttlers having cufflinks or for the younger buttlers a piercing on the left ear -Mitsuru thought the earring was really unprofessional-, and the maids with a gold hairpin in the shape of a butterfly.

While going up the flight of stairs she found paintings hanging from the walls, some were from psychologists such as Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, one was of golden butterflies flying to the distance. "What is this man's obsession with gold butterflies...?" -Mitsuru thought while following the buttler-. One painting in particular caught her attention, it was a portrait of a man in a black attire, dark brown hair and a mask covering his most of his face. Mitsuru couldn't help but feel rather odd while staring at the eyes of the man in painting.

"An intriguing painting is it not?" -said the buttler in front of her while contemplating the portrait- "Master Nanjo said that this man helped him and his friends quite well when he was younger."

"A very strange looking man I have to say."

-The buttler chuckled- "Master Nanjo has mixed feelings for this man, as he respects him he also loathes him... according to him that is."

"Hmm, I see." - said Mitsuru with a confused stare. She asked herself what kind of relationship did they have to be on those ends, both on respect and loathe. She didn't understood those kinds of feelings being mixed for an individual, for her it was one or the other but not both. The last time she ever felt hate and loathe was towards the man that killed her father three years ago. However, when she sees the man on the painting she feels... safe... warm? She didn't know exactly what it was but it definitely was something positive. How odd...

"Please let us continue." - said the buttler. Mitsuru kept following him until they reached the third floor and a door at the end of the corridor. Yet another butterfly on the doorknob.

"Today was a bad day to visit him. If you find the room rather dark it's because he hates the light while drinking." - said the buttler to Mitsuru befor opening the door. Mitsuru looked at him confused.

"Master Nanjo, miss Kirijo has arrived."

"Thank you, Mikaguchi, let her in." - was heard from inside the room. When buttler opened the door Mitsuru was greeted by a dimly lit but well decorated office with a man sitting on a couch 3 meters away from the desk with a bottle of liquor on the table in front and in his hand with a glass with said liquor. The man had short black hair with a pair of glasses resting on his eyes. He was wearing a white shirt with black pants with the buckle of his belt having the words "No.1" engraved on it. "How childish..." - Mitsuru thought.

"Are you planning on doing business standing there? You can sit down, Mitsuru." - said the man on the couch.

"... You still call me by my first name with no honorifics, Nanjo..." - Mitsuru responded while walking to take a seat in the couch in front of Nanjo.

"Our families have been very close to each other for a long time, I see no point in doing so."

"It would be respectful if you do for once, I don't feel comfortable when you so casually call me by my first name."

"What business did you want to talk about?" - he completely ignored her demand.

"... Right. An accountant inside one of our companies has been making some shady business with a competitor and left us with some issues in regards to employee salary. I want to ask for a small loan from you, Nanjo. I don't want to fire people just because of that, they don't deserve it."

"Why not ask to your other companies...?" - said Nanjo with a questioning look.

"I thought if that but it would be the same for those employees, though to a less extent."

"Why did you come to ask me?"

"It is like you said, our families have been close for a long time, you are the only person I can trust with these affairs."

Nanjo was only staring with at her with a calm and collected demeanor while holding his glass of liquor. Mitsuru had the same look on her face.

The moon helped illuminate the dimly lit room, the light reflected on Nanjo's glasses covering his eyes.

"What about my employees?" - he said questioning her.

"I don't think you'll have trouble with them, you have more money than me."

"That may be true, however you are at fault of your situation at making that man the accountant in charge of finances. You are a woman that that can take things on her own accord, it sounds preposterous that you need my help."

"Maybe so, but I prefer shoving my pride out of the table than to risk the well being of my employees."

"We do think alike, I only care for the well being of my employees more than myself. Having a good experience on the workplace gives outstanding redults both morally and financially."

"I agree. So, will you help me?" - Mitsuru asked with a smile while Nanjo looked at her in a serious manner.

"Sure, I will." - he smiled while leaving the glass of liquor on the table.

"I appreciate it, Nanjo." - Mitsuru said giving him a smile without looking away.

"But only if you tell the man in my basement to stop snooping around my safe..." - Mitsuru froze in shock when those words came out of Nanjo's mouth along with a cold piercing stare.

"Or maybe not, he could be on his way to the hospital."

"... What are you talking about?"

"I know how your company is doing and how well it fares. You'll never be able to fool me. That accountant is probably in his house with his family without any sort of 'shady business' with a competitor." - he served himself another glass. - "I have more experience than you on business, I know when people lie to me. You were playing with your fingernails, however I will admitt that you know how to keep your demeanor with such a well calm and collected face."

"..." Mitsuru couldn't believe she was caught so easily even though there couldn't have been any flaws with the plan of infiltration.

Mitsuru hired a spy to steal a small box Nanjo had in his basement inside of a well hidden safe. Inside the box were research files on a different manner to extract a Persona out of a human being. Research done by a man known as Takahisa Kandori, former president of Sebec. Fearful of what Nanjo would do with thise files she decided to steal and destroy them. She didn't want more people becoming artificial Persona-users and suffer because of it. She found out about the files because a former Sebec scientist is working with Mitsuru on shadow related events and is also in charge on rebuilding Aigis when she gets damaged after a battle.

Her plan was perfect, the spy infiltrated Nanjo's mansion as a buttler a year ago, gaining the trust of the staff and supposedly Nanjo, the day Mitsuru would go to meet Nanjo the cameras on the basement and its entrance would be hacked showing a still image with the necessary tools to break the safe being hidden inside a removable brick in the basement the spy did a month after infiltrating. What happened?

"I have someone down there at all times to protect that specific safe. Maybe that someone is the cause he's going to the hospital right now." - a cocky smirk was forming on Nanjo's face.

"... Those papers are dangerous, Nanjo. You don't know what it can be done with them." - Mitsuru said nervously. She felt uneasy at the situation at hand. What was he talking about when he said someone is always there? Surely the spy wouldn't be foolish enough not to check before doing something that could risk his life or risk his paycheck.

"What makes you think that...? Those papers are important and risked my life to get them back. I know exactly what they do."

"Get them back?"

"Yes, it was in someone else's posession. Your grandfather used a more archaic way of extracting Personas, dangerous for both the user and the people around them. However I won't let you take this research, extracting a Joker is far more dangerous than you think."

"You know about my grandfather...?" - Mitsuru was baffled at how well informed Nanjo was. He knew about her grandfather's doings and experiments.

"Of course, a power hungry maniac with no sense of empathy toward others." - he said while Mitsuru looked at him with a slight angry expression. - "I won't destroy them, Mitsuru. Even if I told you the reason you are so stubborn you will still be adamant on destroying it."

"... Do I have to take it by force?" - Mitsuru said trying to act calm while reaching her hand at a gun shaped object hidden in her coat, wishing that this time works.

"Try, you won't be able to do anything. Not with a gun..." - he didn't swayed his stare on Mitsuru, it was intact and sharp like a knife. - "... nor with your evoker." - Mitsuru gasped at Nanjo's mention of the evoker. Just how much does he know about her and Personas?

Mitsuru pulled out her evoker and pointed it at her head.

"Are you certain you want to try...?" - Nanjo asked - "I told you it won't do you any good, mostly not here."

"... I have to try no matter the cost, those papers need to be destroyed." - Mitsuru said while her evoker was pointed at her head with a determined look on her face.

"I can't believe you need that to summon a Persona. Go ahead, do it, you won't do anything." - already angry at his cocky attitude Mitsuru decided to do it and do her usual execution, freeze him just immobilize him and take Kandori's research.

"Artemisia!" - Mitsuru used the evoker, blue shards of light came out of the side of her head revealing a woman with dress and a mask carrying an iron whip. - "It worked. Freeze him, Artemisia!"

"Yamaoka." Nanjo whispered those words and an old man on a hover board carrying a spear came out of his being cutting Artemisia's block of ice and punching her driving her back away from Nanjo.

Mitsuru was astonished, almost in shock. She felt the punch Nanjo's Persona gave to Artemisia.

"I told you..."

"H-how do you...?"

"I awoke to my Persona ability when I was 17 years old, although on a much different manner than yours." - Nanjo said while drinking his glass.

"... No matter, I will get those papers no matter what!" - She sent Artimisia to hit Nanjo with her whip.

"Seigfried..." - A man with red skin carrying a sword appeared behind Nanjo doing absolutely nothing. All of Artemisia's hit were doing nothing to Nanjo, not a single scratch was done on him.

Mitsuru couldn't believe her eyes, he was using another Persona.

"How?" - she thought - "Two Personas!? But the only one capable of doing that was Arisato and Aigis. Is he another Wild Card?" - a bunch of ideas were swingling on her head trying to process and make sense of the situation. The concept of the Wild Card being brought to her mind by the memory of when she was with her friends in that weird blue room with that man with a long nose.

"Give up, Mitsuru. You won't do any harm to me, just yourself, you already look exhausted, you're not used to summoning Personas in the real world, just the Dark Hour." - calm as he always was he tried to reason with Mitsuru. Mitsuru obviously didn't want to fight but those papers were her priority since Nanjo already said he won't destroy them.

"... You talk about having experience and yet you still didn't notice having something ready to attack you from behind." - Mitsuru said while smiling.

"What!?" - Nanjo turned around because in front of him he saw the shadow of two figures, something was blocking the light behind him. It was the ice block Yamaoka previously sliced with his spear. Before he could make Yamaoka react to the ice shards one hit his arm freezing it against the couch and the other missing his head, he couldn't move.

"Damn, everything went backwards." - Mitsuru cursed under her breath. She didn't stood a chance against Nanjo, he wouldn't attack her but she can't stay there attacking forever since it would wear her out. She headed rapidly towards the door to escape, but she suddenly heard footsteps reaching the door fast. They were the bodyguards of Nanjo that helped getting the spy to the hospital.

"Master Nanjo!" - The men yelled, before the men entered Mitsuru ran towards the window. The bodyguards opened the door and saw Mitsuru running to the window and pulled out their guns ready to shoot her.

"Don't shoot!" - Nanjo yelled but it was late, they already did but Artemisia blocked the gunshots with her whip with one bullet ricochetting to Nanjo's frozen arm breaking the block of ice covering his arm, now slightly burned from the cold. Mitsuru jumped from the third floor window descending with the help of Artemisia's whip, her limo was waiting just below. She entered as fast as she could and ordered the driver to get away from there as fast as possible.

"Master Nanjo, do we pursue them?" - asked a bodyguard with his gun in his hand.

"No, I'll take care of it. I don't want any of you to harm that woman. Understood?" - Nanjo said with a firm and strict voice.

"Yes, sir." - the bodyguards responded leaving Nanjo in his office to look for a doctor for his arm.

"I never thought she'd attack me, I thought I wouldn't need bodyguards so I gave them a break, they probably heard the yells and the ice blocks thumping the ground. I was lucky that bullet didn't hit me, I told them not to shoot... I'll see you tomorrow, Mitsuru..." - Nanjo went to his room to sleep but not before looking at the painting of Yamaoka, his father figure, hanging from the wall of his office. Today is his birthday.


	2. Clash

Sweating from all the adrenaline she felt a moment ago, Mitsuru was trying to calm down while sitting in her limo. She felt nervous, confused and all sorts of feelings that were on her head, surprise, numbness... she couldn't help it. The window of the car slightly open with the cold wind flowing through her face, calming her and drying the sweat off. She was thinking of Nanjo, she was thinking that after years of alliance with the Nanjo Group she never found out about Kei Nanjo being a Persona user, less about apparently being a Wild Card, a power only two of her friends shared, summoning multiple Personas... "a useful power..." - she thought with her hand on her forehead.

With her eyes closed she recalled a conversation she once had with Aigis a year ago. She asked Aigis how exactly the power of the Wild Card worked and how one could get it, not for her own use but rather to understand its use and how to withstand a fight with them if she finds an enemy since she obviously wouldn't have a chance against a Wild Card.

"The power works as a way to summon multiple Personas. In Minato's case and myself we can storage up to twelve Personas in our mind. All Personas, obviously, have different attributes, their strengths and weakness with very few exceptions. The Wild Card is represented by the Fool arcana, which according to Igor, the long nosed man, means infinite possibilities. Minato was more powerful than me, he could combine the power of two Personas together for a large variations of results. I for myself cannot do it, I tried multiple times but it was impossible." - Aigis kept explaining how the power worked, to her knowledge at least. Mitsuru couldn't help but be incredibly surprised at the amount of power a Wild Card can have making them virtually unbeatable if prepared. Aigis also mentioned at the moment that having a Wild Card is connected on forming bonds with other people to gain more power, by forming bonds with other people one's horizons widen and understand how the world works, how people think. All that opens an individual's mind and their views on the world making them stronger.

When Aigis explained all of that Mitsuru understood why Arisato was so strong, he made many friends at his time in school but couldn't help but feel that maybe he only formed those bonds just to get stronger but she quickly dismisses the idea, he wasn't that kind of person. He may have been lazy sometimes with a rather deadpan sense of humor an hated hard work since it was too much but he was determined to accomplish what mattered most.

The cold wind kept hitting her face, already calm she tried to make sense of what happened at Nanjo's mansion. He was clearly strong, he only summoned two Personas at the time but he could maybe summon more since that implied being a Wild Card, maybe he used very few or all the ones he had, Aigis did mentioned that Personas were storaged up to twelve implying one can choose to have less... as impractical and unlikely as it may sound so she was sure Nanjo had more so he maybe didn't go all out. - "I was lucky. He was pretty confident and didn't realize of the ice blocks behind him... he underestimated me... with good reason." - Mitsuru thought. She kept thinking she was lucky that Nanjo got cocky, probably because he was slightly drunk since the bottle of liquor was half empty. When Nanjo sliced her block of ice she kept her magic power on the ice just in case something happened before it could melt. - "... He summoned two Personas without effort outside of the Dark Hour... I can barely even keep Artemisia active for two minutes before I get tired." - Mitsuru never met anyone that could summon their Personas in the real world outside of the Dark Hour, Akihiko, Aigis and herself were starting to manifest them for a short period of time a year two years prior before Akihiko went out on his journey. - "I need to talk to Aigis afterwards."

"Miss Kirijo, we're here." - the driver told her. Mitsuru, after a couple of hours away from Nanjo's mansion, asked him to go to the nearest hospital in Mikage-cho to visit the spy she hired. It was very possible his bodyguards sent him to the hospital that was closer to the mansion.

"Thank you, I'll come back in five minutes or so."

"Understood." - Mitsuru got out of the limo and went inside the hospital.

The hospital had very few people, understandable since it's past midnight. At the left of the entrance were two vending machines and one of them had a white creature dressed in blue. - "How curious, it looks like one of the Personas Arisato and Aigis used." - She went to talk to the receptionist to ask for a man that may have recently came in with injuries.

"Are you a family member?" - the receptionist asked with a smile.

"Yes, last name is Ishida." - she lied. She needs to keep a low profile despite the events that happened recently... and showing up in a limo.

"Yes, Mr. Ishida is in the room 325."

"Thank you." - Mitsuru went to a hallway on the left and entered the elevator an pushed the button to the third floor. She wondered if the bodyguards were the ones that attacked Ishida but that was unlikely since he wouldn't be stupid enough to act in a life risking situation with bodyguards around, Nanjo did say someone was always down on the basement guarding Kandori's research... but how is it possible that Ishida didn't found anyone down there? Another one of Nanjo's Personas? Possible since non-Persona users can't see Personas in the real world outside of the Dark Hour... no, a Persona can't be that far away from its user... a secret passage, maybe? Maybe, Nanjo has the income and room enough to make one.

Mitsuru got out of the elevator and walked down the hallway.

But wouldn't Ishida be able to find a secret passage after a year of working for Nanjo? Mitsuru kept thinking and thinking but no matter what theories she could come up with she kept going back to square one, she couldn't reach a conclusion on what attacked Ishida.

She reached the room and went in. She saw the man on the bed wounded, cuts on his right arm and right leg, a slightly injured neck and slight burns on his abdomen. The man was still conscious.

"Ishida, what happened!?" - Mitsuru asked with a surprised look on her face at the sight of all his injuries.

"Aside from recieving a misery of a salary I feel like I was ran over by a truck, but I don't remember much... I'm probably fired, being a buttler sucks anyway." - he said while struggling to take the words out of his mouth.

"It doesn't matter, you will still get your paycheck."

"Really? Even though I failed to do the job?"

"Yes, it wasn't your fault, I know you are very capable of doing a perfect job but something went wrong and there was nothing you could do about it."

"Huh... whatever, a failed job is a failed job, nothing I can do about it but thanks that you still want to pay me."

"Anyway, I want to know how you prepared throughout the year in Nanjo's mansion." - Mitsuru sat down on a chair at the side of the bed, Ishida couldn't see her since he can hardly move his neck.

"... All of it, really?"

"You'll get half the pay if you don't."

"Fine, I will." - he sighed, it took a few seconds for him to remember exactly all the necessary parts.

Ishida explained he presented a resume like any other regular job at the end of december of 2010, with a real background and name since it was obvious Nanjo would investigate his past, obviously ommiting his spy job part since he keeps that part of his life perfectly hidden, Nanjo accepted him and made him work the same day. He gained the trust of the staff after two months along with Nanjo's apparently.

At the third month he was tasked to take thirty boxes or so to the basement, he took the opportunity to put some of the tools he would use to break the safe.

"How did you managed to take tools inside of the mansion?"

"They were with my belongings and convinced them that I could fix stuff... but a week after I made up the excuse that someone stole them from me but I actually hid them outside of the mansion on a place they wouldn't look... they bought it."

"Your belongings?"

"Yeah, I moved there. I told Nanjo I lived in Tokyo and that working for the greatest man in Japan would be an honor and thus the reason I took that long trip from Tokyo to Mikage-cho. I guess he liked what I said and offered me a room."

"I guess feeding his ego works to fool him." - Mitsuru thought while covering her eyes in disbelief.

Since Ishida knew where the cameras were placed in the basement he put the box with the necessary tools on a blind spot he found at the corner of the room. A week later he hid the tools behind of a removable brick on that same blind spot.

"Why didn't you left them in the box?"

"The boxes I took to the basement were full of canned food."

"... Canned food?"

"He donates food to charity overseas to the countries that need it most so I needed to take them out of the box so they wouldn't be found and I was lucky to find that removable brick."

"Huh... he's generous it seems." - Mitsuru thought, this were the kind of actions of why she respects Nanjo.

Two months later Ishida took the chance to study the safe in a way that wouldn't look suspicious to the cameras, he took three minutes to inspect it and a month later did the same and understood how it worked since the power went out and took at least fifteen minutes which was enough.

"Why did you took months in between to do things?"

"Firstly it was so I wouldn't raise any suspicion and the other reason was because I was in charge of cleaning duty and cooking, the man in charge of the basement was another one and I took the advantage of the days he wasn't around." - he explained that afterwards that same day he took notes of his findings of the safe and planned how to open it. It took him two weeks to plan the break in. The months afterwards he didn't do anything except studying his plan, all until Mitsuru's arrival on 2012.

"Nanjo takes daily visits to the basement." - Ishida explained - "So I took advantage of your distraction."

"I know, it was part of the plan along with hacking the cameras."

"Yeah... well... that's one year of my life I'll never get back." - he yawned maybe due to the morphine, it was impressive that he wasn't under the mental effects of the drug.

Mitsuru spent a couple of minutes talking with Ishida ommiting the mention of Personas since he was only hired he wasn't part of the Kirijo Group.

"He fell asleep... he deserves to rest for all the trouble I caused him. I'll send him his paycheck tomorrow." - Mitsuru got up from the chair and heard a noise, something fell to the ground... it was a small black... - "Microphone!?" - She thought, she didn't check the room before talking to Ishida. She crushed the microphone with her heel. - "He knew beforehand that I would visit him and planted a microphone under the chair. How was I so stupid? I'm not taking him seriously, I'm underestimating him. Kei Nanjo, I won't be humiliated by you!" - her thoughts full of anger towards how he fooled her twice. She got out of the room and headed towards the elevator. Outside of the hospital he found her driver smoking out of the limo, when he saw her he threw it away and got inside the vehicle with Mitsuru afterwards.

"Where do you want to go, Miss Kirijo?" - the driver asked.

"Take me to the nearest hotel. Tomorrow we go back to Port Island."

"Understood."

They passed through many houses, buildings and St. Hermelin High School. Mitsuru praised this school due to its very capable... and non eccentric teachers which her high school lacked on normal... except maybe Miss Toriumi.

When she arrived at the hotel she asked for a regular room, same for her driver.

"Have a good night, Miss Kirijo."

"Same thing for you, Takeda, good night." - she entered her room and went to her bed. She spent almost an hour thinking of all the events that happened that same day, Nanjo discovering her plan, humiliating her with his Personas, the microphone in Ishida's hospital room... everything, he made a fool out of her. "This is ridiculous..." - Mitsuru thought, already drowsy, she tried to think of something else like her college studies, unlike other people studying was something she liked doing. She thought on her last exam she did last week. - "I can't believe I actually got question 5 wrong." - after thinking about college after some time she finally went to sleep.


	3. The Past

Nanjo couldn't sleep, he never liked people that lied to him, and Mitsuru did for an entire year with the spy infiltrated as one of his buttlers. - "I got cocky..." - he thought, he had this problem since he was young, he remembered that when he was 17 years old he got overconfident and attacked a demon and managed to kill but he never noticed the demon coming behind him, he was saved by his friend Masao Inaba with his Persona Susano-o. Afterwards he started being more careful around the enemy but he never thought Mitsuru would pull a stunt with her ice spell the way she did. - "Clever..." - He admired how well trained Mitsuru was when it came to tactical attacks and tricks. He thought of the lengths she went on to get Kandori's research on artificial Persona-users, an infiltration for an entire year, that spy even gained his trust. - "I can't destroy those files..." - he thought, he couldn't let anyone take them, not even Mitsuru. It was like he said, he risked his life to take those papers, they were under heavy security, it took him months to find its whereabouts but he didn't do it alone.

-Spring, year 2000-

After he left Maya's group when they found Tatsuya Nanjo got on his motorcycle and went to see Eriko Kirishima who was with a fortuneteller.

"It seems you're still into the ocult and tarot readings, Eriko." - said Nanjo to Elly while holding his helmet.

"How could I not? It's just amazing how many meanings a reading can have... and of course demons exist so more reason to do so, maybe cupid will smile on me one day." - Elly as always was cheerful when she was talking with her friends and Nanjo wasn't an exception even though he was always a serious man. - "Want me to read your fortune?"

"No."

"Come one, Kei, it's going to be worth it." - she took her own tarot deck out of her purse. Nanjo stared at her displeased.

"I said no, Igor always read mine and it was always uncomfortable when he did... and call me Nanjo."

"But Igor is a nice man and he always did it with good intentions." - she smiled at him while shuffling her deck.

"He didn't. Brown told him that I made a joke about him using a curtain to wipe his nose instead of a tissue. After that all of the fortune tellings he did were either that my money was going to be stolen, that I would go to jail and that one of his servants would use Megidolaon on me."

"... Did you say that about his nose?"

"Of course not but he wouldn't believe me."

"I didn't know Igor had servants."

"Me neither, I thought it was only Belladonna, Nameless and himself working under Philemon."

"Okay, it's done." - Elly already put all the cards on the table.

"I said no, Eriko." - she was ignoring him.

She put a card on her left, it was the Judgement card, on her right she put the Empress card, avobe she put the Magician card, below she put the Justice card and on the center of the center of the four cards was the Devil. - "Ooh, interesting."

"What?"

"I thought you didn't liked fortune telling, Kei."

"You ignored me and went through with it so what difference does it make now?"

"Hmm..." - she gave him a sarcastic teasing smile.

"Don't mock me." - he gave her a cold look.

"Fine, don't be so scary with that look." - Elly crossed her legs and leaned closer to the table and told him her interpretation of the cards. - "Your judgement on what is right or wrong will be clouded by something representing the devil, decieving, evil, enticing, making you reject your nurturing nature and what is right for the common good, using your intellect however may turn the tables bringing everything into balance again.

"..."

"... What?"

"That sounds ridiculous."

"Why!?"

"Eriko, you know me and I would never be decieved by something 'evil', it would never work."

"Complain to the cards, not me."

"It doesn't matter, I'm leaving." - Nanjo got up from the table and started walking towards the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to the hotel, it's almost midnight and I need to check something I found."

"What is it?"

"Research files from Kandori."

"What are they about?"

"..." - he was relunctant on telling her but he knew she had the right to know as well, they were friends that needed each other in every hardship. - "Creating artificial Persona-users by forcefully extracting the joker from inside their mind."

"What!?" - Elly got up from her chair and looked at Nanjo with fear.

"I haven't read much into it but... apparently awakening to a Persona unnaturally comes with a price to the user, leaving side effects and other sorts of malice."

"That's awful..." - she had a sad look on her face. - "I want to see it too. Is it in the hotel?"

"No, I have it with me, it's in the bag of my motorcycle."

"Take me with you then."

"Fine, take my helmet." - he handed his helmet to Elly.

"Thanks, Kei." - she smiled at him. - "It will probably ruin my hair, though."

"Call me Nanjo." -both went outside and Nanjo got on his motorcycle.

"Hey... Kei... the bag is open."

"What!?" - He turned around to see that the bag was in fact open. - "It got stolen!?" - Nanjo thought. - "I should have brought it with me inside!"

"Kei, look!" - Nanjo looked at the direction Elly was pointing and saw a black car driving off at a high speed.

"Could it be the thief?" - he thought, maybe they were driving off to get away from him as fast as possible or maybe not but he didn't have any other lead, he had to follow them and retrieve the documents if they had them. - "Eriko, get on!"

"Got it!" - she did what Nanjo told her to do. Nanjo started the engine and went on at full speed, it didn't took him long to catch on to the car. The window on the left opened and man came out with a gun, Nanjo didn't see which kind but he assumed it was a 9mm, and began to shoot at them. - "Dammit! It is them. Eriko, I'll make sure the bullets won't hit us, try to take out the tires! Yamaoka!" - Yamaoka appeared and deflected the bullets with his spear.

"Okay, leave it to me! Gabriel!" - Eriko summomed her Persona Gabriel, the archangrl appeared wearing a green suit and had pipes in her back appearing as wings. She ordered Gabriel to throw small ice stalactites at the tires of the car, all of them were missing.

"I can't hit them!"

"Throw an ice block at their front, that will make them move at the opposite direction the ice falls and afterwards shoot at the tires when you get the chance!" - that's what she did, missed, missed, missed, it hit! The car flipped on its front leaving the car upside down. Three men in black suits got out injured but still adamant on attacking Nanjo and Elly. Of course the bullets couldn't hit them, Yamaoka was deflecting the bullets while Elly changed her Persona to Michael to help him out. - "That is enough! Just give back what you took and I'll let you go!" - yelled Nanjo while the men were pointlessly wasting their time attacking the Persona users.

"I'm afraid I can't hand this to you, young Nanjo!" - the men stopped firing and another man got out of the car, be was wearing an expensive suit and had an eyepatch in his right eye. That man had a piercing glare that starled Elly a bit. - "Unlike Mitsuru's I can't see theirs..." - the man mumbled - "We need these documents, you'll need to get through to get them."

"Who's he?" - Elly asked while thinking how handsome he was.

"Well... fancy meeting you here, Takeharu Kirijo. You certainly know how to greet someone, have you told me it was an arms greetings I would have brought my sniper rifle."

The man called Takeharu Kirijo took out a gun and pointed at them. - "Do NOT mock me, kid, I don't recommend doing so."

"Oh? Is that a threat?" - Nanjo said with a cocky smile. - "I doubt you'll be able to hit anything, your eye sight will sway your aim."

"Believe me, I always come prepared, I never dwell on my pride unlike someone in front of me."

"A little bit to your left, honey." - said Elly, Kirijo ignored her, he still wasn't used to his eyepatch.

"I guess you know what these documents are for, am I correct? They're dangerous, Takeharu." - Nanjo took a slight step forward.

"Yes, that's why we need it. I'm actually surprised you don't know what the reason is." - Nanjo looked at him with a confused stare, what was he talking about? - "Then again, how would you, it appears the Dark Hour doesn't appear here... I guess that's good." - Kirijo thought to himself. He was glad the Dark Hour wasn't occuring on Sumaru City but wondered why since it happens everywhere else, what was different for Sumaru City?

"Takeharu, give me those documents." - he took another step forward. a gun shot was heard and Yamaoka deflected the bullet, Nanjo stopped advancing. - "You're serious about this."

"It was obvious from the start that I was. My men firing at you even injured as they are, myself without an eye and using a gun with little care as to what I hit. And of course..." - another black car appeared and stopped behind Kirijo. - "... like I said coming prepared." - the man took a cylinder from his pocket and threw it at Nanjo. Yamaoka reacted to hit the object back at Kirijo. - "A grenade!? Eriko, look out!" - before Nanjo could react to push Elly back the grenade exploded and a loud bang was heard along with a strong light, it was a flash grenade. - "Dammit! Eriko, are you okay!?"

"What!? I can't hear you!"

"Are you okay!?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Pixie, help us." - she changed to the Persona Pixie to cure the stun effect on both of them. - "Where did they go?" - she asked while putting her hand to her still hurting head.

"I don't know." - Nanjo ran to where the Kirijo once was. "It looks like they went left, there are fresh tire marks here. Get on the bike, we'll keep chasing them."

"Okay... ow my head..."

After minutes of driving they caught up, luckily the street they were in didn't have exits on its sides. They turned right, turned left while still deflecting bullets.

"Enough!" - said Kirijo. - "There are more pedestrians here, stop shooting." - his men complied.

"They stopped shooting." - said Elly. - "Maybe he cares what his actions causes."

"No, he does it because of civilians... before he attacked us with all he had... he knows we have Personas." - Nanjo told Elly who was healing a wound on the former's leg since a bullet brushed him. - "But I still cannot let them get away with it. Yamaoka!"

"Gabriel!" - both Personas appeared. Gabriel prepared a long lance made of ice, it took her almost a minute. Both Yamaoka and Gabriel grabbed the ice lance and with all their strength they threw it at Kirijo's car.

"Kirijo, sir, look out!" - a bodyguard yelled. Kirijo was taken by surprise when he looked behind him and saw a lance coming at them at a high speed. - "More ice!?" - the man yelled in frustration.

The lance pierced the roof of the car completely freezing it. The roof of the car shattered due to the extreme cold temperature of the spell. - "Drive faster!"

"I'm going as fast as I can, sir!"

"Good, we're getting close."

"Kei, we're getting to the outskirts of the city!" - she pointed at a sign that was far ahead from them.

"It doesn't matter, we need to get those papers." - he accelerated. They were getting closer, they were almost between 15 to 20 meters away from the car. They were getting closer to exiting the city.

"Huh? What's happening!?" - they were distracted by something.

"The ground is moving. An earthquake!? Eriko, hold on!" - Elly grabbed Nanjo's waist trying not to fall off. The earthquake was getting stronger, at this rate they will fall off from the bike. They felt a bump from below them, Nanjo lost the balance from the bike. - "No! Eriko!" - they fell off, Nanjo grabbed on to Eriko before they would hit the ground trying to protect her from further injuries that they will already get. They rolled and rolled in the ground with Nanjo getting injured the most due to his larger body size in comparison to Elly until they came to a full stop. Elly only got a dislocated finger and some bruises on her arms and legs, the helmet protected her head. - "Okay... one, two, three! AGH!" - she managed to put it back to its place, she took the helmet off. She looked back at Nanjo and saw that his head was bleeding but it wasn't sirious, she later saw that his left shoulder was dislocated and that he was in a lot of pain. - "My god! Kei, are you alright!?"

"Get off me!" - Nanjo pushed her back and struggled to get back up. - "Cu Chulaaaainn!"

"Diana!" - Elly summoned a woman with a bow and arrow but threw away the latter and the former growing in size. Nanjo always admired how quick she reacted in a battle. Cu Chulainn handed his spear to Elly's Persona, Diana, and both Personas grabbed the bow and spear and used their strength to prepare and fire the spear at Kirijo's car which was already far away. The Personas fired the spear at a blinding speed that even cut the wind as it passed through... however the spear missed.

"What!? How!?" - Nanjo couldn't understand how the attack missed, it had the aim of both Personas, it should've been a perfect hit... but... something wasn't right, the car was decending in the distance. - "What's happening...?" - No, the car wasn't decending, it was them that were acending.

"Kei, look, what on earth is that!?" - both of them saw a huge silver metal thing appearing on the horizon, it had a slight curve as if it was a huge metal ring. Nanjo and Elly both stared with fear and surprise at the events ocurring in front of their eyes. The metal object kept lifting itself up until it was above the city, it was clear at first glance that the metal object was in fact a massive ring covering the city. Another "ring" appeared behind them, it was larger than the first one.

The spear missed, the earthquake, Kirijo's car appearing as it was decending from the ground... - "The city... is the city... floating?" - he came at the realization that Sumaru City was flying... somehow, he didn't know how or why it came to this, all he knew was that Takeharu Kirijo got away from with Kandori's research on artificial Persona users.

"We need to find Maya and the others, Kei. Maybe they know what happened."

"Probably... dejá vù..." - he felt like he lived this situation before but quickly dismissed it. He got down to his knees and hit his dislocated shoulder on the ground. - "AAAAAAGH!" - he fixed his shoulder back but not without a great amount of pain coming from it.

"I could've healed you, sweetie." - Elly said sarcastically.

"Silence." - they both went back to the motorcycle and decided to go back to the hotel just to rest since it was pointless to follow Kirijo at this point. - "We'll go look for Maya and the others tomorrow... we need to rest after all that."

"Sure. Uhm... thanks for protecting me back there, Kei." - she smiled at him.

"That's what friends are for." - he smiled back.

"Want me to heal your head wound?"

"Yes, please do. I'm having a headache, I don't want to crash and dislocate my shoulder again for you."

"Haha, I'll keep that in mind.

After returning to the hotel, both Nanjo and Elly went to their respective rooms and slept. The next morning both of them did what they could only do, fight demons and the New World Order to protect the city while Maya's group defeats Nyarlathotep. After hours of arduous and life threatening battles the city came back to the ground, Maya, Tatsuya, Katsuya, Baofu and Ulala managed to stop the crawling chaos but not without a heavy price regarding Tatsuya's fate...

It was 10:57 PM, both Elly and Nanjo went to gather with Maki Sonomura, Yukino Mayuzumi and Reiji Kido in a bar to talk about Kandori's research data.

"That sick son of a bitch. Even dead that bastard keeps causing trouble." - Reiji leaned back on his chair with an frustrated expression, Maki filled his glass. - "Thanks..."

"But why did he bothered doing that research?" - Yukino asked. - "I mean, after you guys killed him four years ago you mentioned he was at peace or at least looked like he was."

"I'm not entirely sure, he was on his right mind yesterday on the ruins. I sometimes can't understand what is on that man's head." - Nanjo explained. - "Even if he was just a walking rumor he acted the same way, same body language, same outlook on life... I honestly think Nyarlathotep's power is frightful."

"Tch... who cares? What matters now is where are those papers now."

"How are we supposed to know?" - Maki leaned on the table with her drink on her left hand. - "That Kirijo guy escaped right when the city started to fly. He might as well be on his way to another country."

"I doubt it. He has motives to use those documents and he seemed desperate, I assume he's still in Japan... possibly."

"Jeez, you don't know? Talk about useless."

"I was trapped inside this city as well, Hidehiko, just like you... When did you get here...?"

"Just now. Why didn't you guys invite me to talk trash about that Nyrlepopet?"

"It's Nyarlathotep you jackass." - Reiji kept drinking. - "And we did tell you to come."

"Whatever. I didn't come here for that, I actually have great news."

"What is it, Brown?" - Yukino was checking her stuff from work while listening.

"Our good ol' leader is coming to visit!" - after saying that Maki and Elly stood up and had a shocked expression which changed to instant happiness... and both looked at each other and sat back down.

"... Awkward..." - Yukino whispered.

"... No kidding..." - Reiji answered while avoiding eye contact with Maki that was looking at him.

"Huh, so Naoya is coming back. When is he coming?" - Nanjo couldn't help but smile, Naoya Toudou was the man he respected the most out of his group of friends.

"In 30 minutes, actually." - both girls stood up again in happiness, looked at each other and sat back again.

"... Desperate aren't we..." - Reiji whispered.

"After four years it's no surprise." - Yukino answered avoiding eye contact with Elly who was looking at her. - "That's great, I'll have to ask what he did in all these years."

"He apparently doesn't want to talk about it."

"Why?"

"I dunno, I asked and he just took a long minute to answer 'it... doesn't matter'... yeah."

"What the hell is up with him?" - Reiji asked perplexed, Yukino held his glass and said to stop drinking, it was getting to him. - "Fine."

"Who knows... eh, whatever, let's just wait here until he comes." - Brown sat down at Nanjo's side and ordered a bottle of scotch.

"I just don't don't understand whay you guys are drinking so much."

"Come on, it's about enjoying the moment, Maki."

"It ruins one's skin, Yukino."

"When you're about to have a kid and a nagging girlfriend you don't have a choice." - Reiji answered looking at Yukino as if his eyes begged her to let him drink a bit more, Yukino said to go ahead. - "Thanks."

"Fine... just this once."

All six of them started to talk about trivial stuff like work, how many Personas they have at the moment and where they would spend their vacation this summer. After a while they talked about the feats of Maya's group, mostly praising Tatsuya after the final battle. Reiji mentioned he proposed to his girlfriend and said that after thinking a lot, he'll name his unborn child Takashi if it's a boy with Nanjo saying it was a fine name.

34 minutes passed, it was 11:31PM.

"He's here!" - Brown yelled. Both Maki and Elly nod and went to greet their friend.

"Welcome back!" - both were smiling when the man in question entered, his piercing reflecting a dim light, and returned the smile.

"Hey, long time no see." - their former leader said.

"Four years too long, Naoya." - Yukino said giving him a pat on the back. - "It seems you still have that piercing."

"I'm not taking it off any time soon... nice pseudo-afro."

"Shut up, moron." - she couldn't help but smile.

"It seems you still have that weird sense of humor." - Nanjo walked towards him and extended his hand.

"Says the guy that has none." - they both shook hands. - "So... flying city, how did that happen?" - Naoya sat down.

"You heard then." - Nanjo asked.

"I saw. I actually got here yesterday but I only saw a crater instead of a city."

"It's a long story."

"I'm all ears."

"Nyarlathotep." - Maki said.

"... I see. You guys dealt with him?"

"No, some other guys were dealing with that thing." - Reiji had a last glass of scotch.

"Really... Philemon gave them Personas to deal with him?"

"Yeah, it actually goes way deeper than that but that's basically it." - Maki explained.

\- "I'll give you full details tomorrow."

"Sure."

"Anyway, we have some more issues with us." - Elly told Naoya about Kandori and his research.

"Artificial Persona users... how does it work?"

"I managed to read a bit on it and basically it isn't stable. A Persona can overtake the user ans turn them into a demon."

"... And this Kirijo man stole it from you... how?"

"I left it on my motorcycle, I never thought someone would steal it, I was careless."

"Eh, nothing you can do now. The guy stole it, we'll just get it back, I would just kick down the door."

"Not if they gun you down, Captain Naked."

"Say that again to my face you poor excuse of a TV star."

"I see. Well, I traveled through all of Japan and saw some places that were under the Kirijo name, he probably will do experiments with that data in one of those places."

"I know those places as well but I doubt he will go through them in such obvious places. He knows I would go to one of those places and get them back. He wouldn't risk those documents due to an idiotic choice."

"I know more places. Did you know they have a bunker on Tokyo? It goes a few docen of meters down."

"... No, I didn't know... how did you find such thing?"

"Boredom, and I couldn't sleep that night, so after following a trail I found such place, same with the more hidden ones in the country."

"What trail are you talking about?" - Nanjo asked confused.

"What time is it?"

"11:45"

"In fifteen minutes you'll find out." - Naoya had a sip from his glass. - "Not a pretty sight, though." - he mumbled, all his friends looked at him confused.

"What happens in fifteen minutes, Naoya?" - Maki asked.

"... They don't know..." - Naoya thought. - "That thing started last year and no matter where I went it kept happening.. how can they not know?" - he remembered that event at midnight to be almost like a nightmare, he lost sleep for at least an entire week until he found out how it worked once he inflitrated in that Kirijo bunker in Tokyo he mentioned. - "It may sound cliché but if I explain now you won't believe me nor will you understand, so just be patient."

"Okay... sooo... why don't you tell us about your travels?" - Maki asked with a smile, Naoya face just went dark.

"I uh... rather not talk about it... haha." - Brown looked at Maki with a 'told you' kind of face.

"Traumatic?" - Nanjo asked.

"I didn't enjoy it."

"Why?" - Yukino asked.

"Don't ask. Anyway, I know that the Kirijo Group are located in Tatsumi Port Island but I don't think that Takeharu guy will hide in such an obvious spot. I will tell you where these locations are and we will split up to find Kandori's documents, it's the best way I can think of."

"I could send my men to look for them and save time." - Nanjo said.

"Don't. If Kirijo is involved with something serious like creating artificial Persona users then I'm pretty sure he will have something prepared for us."

"He knows we'll go."

"Yeah, if you send normal people they'll end up dead the moment they get inside."

"How many of those facilities did you find?"

"I started to take note of those facilities the moment I found that bunker in Tokyo. When I went inside I started to read stuff I found and I knew they were in something shady so I wrote down every Kirijo related place I found."

"... So that's why you came to 'visit' us." - Nanjo pointed out.

"Yeah, sorry. I wanted to ask for your help regarding this, Mark is still in America so I can't ask him and Yuka isn't that reliable... and she has a baby to take care of."

"I'm gonna be a father too but I can still help."

"... You're gonna be a dad?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Nothing... poor woman."

"Screw you."

"Anyway, how are you going to deal with it?"

"I will go to the nearest facility near Sumaru when the baby gets here since both my future wife and the kid will stay in the hospital for a few days before they can go home. I will try to come up with an excuse."

"Okay, you're lucky because I got seven places you can visit. Here thet are." - Naoya passed a piece of paper to Reiji.

"You can count on me, but since they're seven it will probably take me some time even after the baby comes."

"Elly since you travel a lot due to your modeling career I'll give you twenty of them."

"Got it. I'll also take the one in Tokyo since I need to go there tomorrow."

"Yukino, I'll give you ten and and some names from the people involved with the Kirijo Group so you can beat up info out of them."

"Beat them up? What kind of woman do you think I am?"

"The same woman that stole money while punching me in our 1st year in Hermelin."

"... Fine... why can't you just forget that? I said I was sorry."

"Brown, I'll give you-"

"Thirteen, I already picked them."

"Okay. Maki... you take the ones you want."

"I have vacations this december so I'll get fifteen, it will probably take me three vacations, though."

"It's okay, I'm counting on you." - both shared a smile. Nanjo snirked a little.

"Stop it, Kei."

"Stop what, miss jealous?" - Elly kicked Nanjo's leg.

"And Nanjo-"

"I'll take the rest of them."

"You sure?"

"Yes, you already took your time finding all these locations and I have a lot of free time so I can take it."

"Fine, good luck then." - after splitting work between them they talked about how to get inside the Kirijo facilities until it was 11:59PM.

"It's almost midnight, get ready, everyone."

"For what?"

"You'll see" - the clock marked 12:00AM. What they witnessed was something akin to a nightmare, the atmosphere around them was heavy, everything around them had a sickly green color, their drinks turned red, the sky outside had a dark and sinister green color as well with the moon being the most nerve wrecking sight of all for a reason they could not explain. Multiple coffins standing outside and inside the bar. Even Reiji who was arguably the most stoic one out of the group looked scared and felt a chill ran down his spine but tried to stay calm even with the heavy atmosphere that felt like a massive amount of preasure in his head. All of them, except Naoya, were surprised and felt the same as Reiji, they couldn't even say a word, it was too much to process at once.

Brown lost his balance and fell from his chair, he was hyperventilating and sweating, Elly was being held by Yukino to support her since the former looked out of it, but Yukino wasn't calm either, she had her hand in her mouth since she felt like vomiting due to the sight she was experiencing in front of her but immideatly held the feeling back. Naoya was holding Maki's hand under the table since she looked terrified... but she didn't seem affected by the heavy atmosphere unlike the others, Naoya noticed this and he didn't understand since even him felt sick when he first witnessed this event. Nanjo had a cold sweat and tried to keep his composure, he slowly stood up and leaned on the table and tried to slowly breathe.

"That's it, close your eyes and slowly breathe just like Nanjo. You'll soon feel well." - Naoya kept holding Maki's hand until she said she was okay.

Nanjo was getting better but still breathing slowly but heavily. - "Naoya... what is the meaning of this? What on earth is going on!?" - Nanjo stood firmly and felt slightly better, same with everyone else with Brown still slightly shocked.

"This is why I found those Kirijo facilities. The blood you see here on floor for some reason formed a trail to those facilities and in all of them I found documents mentioning this anomaly is called the Dark Hour."

"Dark Hour? What do you mean?"

Naoya crossed his arms and explained. - "The Dark Hour is apparently a hidden hour. You could say that, in theory, we have 25 hours in a day."

"H-hey... what do you mean 25 hours? What thr hell are you talking about, man!?" - Brown went paranoid at that statement, he felt like he was joking.

"Just look at your watch, it should've passed four or five minutes already after midnight." - all of them checked their wristwatch and all confirmed that the needles haven't moved at all. All of them wondered if they were broken but quickly dismissed it due to being too much of a coincidence that all of them just stopped at midnight. - "This event lasts at least an hour, since nothing works during this so called Dark Hour I used an hourglass to measure how long it lasted since at my first experience it felt like forever."

"What do you mean nothing works?"

"Anything that works on electricity or batteries such as vehicles, cellphones, flashlights, clocks, etc. just stops functioning, I don't know the reason."

"What about the coffins? Why are there coffins here all of the sudden?"

"... The coffins are people." - all froze at the statement. - "The coffin you see behind the counter is the barman, the coffins protects them."

"Protects them? Protects them from what?"

"Well... it's hard to say... they're black blobs of slime that when are disturbed turn to really strange creatures, not demons that's for sure. According to the documents I found they are called Shadows, they feast from the human psyche and thus the coffins are there, however there are times where people aren't in their coffins and just turn into those Shadows due to the latter's involvement in their psyche and the people that make it through the Dark Hour just don't remember anything."

"Talk about exposition... that's a lot to swallow." - Yukino just held her head trying to comprehend what Naoya just explained.

"Well, you better accept it right now, we're getting outside, there could be one of those blobs outside... which reminds me, how did you guys didn't know about this?"

"I... I don't know, I've never seen such thing." - said Nanjo while his friends and himself walked towards the door.

"Huh... anyway, this started to happen last year maybe around July or August, I don't really remember." - as they walked in the street they saw cars with coffins inside, puddles of blood in side of the road.

Maki said she moved to Sumaru along with Yukino in 1998 and bothe pursued different jobs. Nanjo said he heard the rumor of Kandori walking around in Sumaru last year in early August and decided to look around but it was actually Reiji the one the rumors were about much to the latter's anger when he heard about it. While her modeling career is a nation wide job for Elly she had a lot of work in Sumaru for three months since July, afterwards she had a vacation but decided to stay in Sumaru and later took a hiatus that had to be extended due to the weird events in the city. Brown moved to Sumaru two months after Maki and Yukino since he was offered a job at a TV station in the city after he gained popularity in Mikage-cho. Reiji was in Sumaru since February and he met his girlfriend a short time afterwards.

"Wow... incredible coincidence there that all of you ended up in the same place... spooky."

"Yeah, weird."

"Uh... Naoya?"

"What is it, Brown?"

"If nothing works during this Dark Hour thing... what happens to planes?" - all of them came to a full stop.

"Huh... nice question... I guess they crash or just stay up in the air... I guess." - they continued walking.

After several minutes of walking through the streets of Sumaru they found the so-called Shadows, indeed they were just black blobs. Reiji as hard headed as he is just attacked causing the black blob to mutate into what Brown mentioned something that looked like the American wrestling star named Hulk Hogan. Maki gave the idea to just negotiate with the thing to avoid fighting which Naoya answered that, unlike demons, Shadows are violent by nature and don't have the necessary intelligence to speak and negotiate which he found out the hard way once. After defeating the Shadows they kept exploring and kept finding more of them in different shapes and forms with most of them wearing masks, some had the form of deformed babies, some looked like a dancing couple but without heads and once saw from afar a big one that carried a pair of guns and a long black coat with Naoya mentioning better not to bother it.

"How did Masao and Ayase dealt with this, Naoya?" - Nanjo asked.

"I once called Mark and the conversation was brought up and said that he witnessed the Dark Hour during daytime at 10:00AM and from what I heard from him it looks even worse to the point he lost sleep for a month. About Ayase she didn't even know what I was talking about so it appears she just sleeps right through it."

After fighting Shadows Naoya said the Dark Hour would be over soon and said they need to be back at the bar that they were at. The Dark Hour ended after a few minutes when they entered the bar and after processing all that they witnessed they decided to talk about finding the documents Kirijo stole.

"Anyway... it seems that the Kirijo Group is clearly connected to this somehow from what I can think of so we need to take back that research data." - Nanjo explained.

"If he finds out how to use it, which is the most possible outcome, he will have at least a dozen of artificial users, Nanjo."

"I know, Maki, but it's better to stop him at a dozen than at a hundred of them." - after paying for his drink Nanjo decided to go to his hotel. - "What are you going to do now Naoya?"

"Eh, I guess I'll rest from a traveling a bit, I think staying still for a moment is what I need... I don't have a place to stay, though."

"You can stay at mine if you like." - Reiji said.

"Thanks but I'm not comfortable living with people I don't know."

"Nah, don't worry she's a nice gal, she'll recieve you with open arms."

"Hehe... right. Thanks, man." - Naoya stood up along with Reiji and went with him to the latter's house but not without Naoya waving his hand his friends before leaving.

"You girls lost your opportunity to ask him to stay with you." - Yukino's statement made both Maki and Elly blush a bit.

"Says the girl that won't admit that she likes an old man."

"Shunsuke isn't an old man!"

"Oooh, now we're going by first names eh, Yukino?"

"Knock it off, Eriko!"

"Enough childish behaviour you two. Go home and rest, we have an entire country to explore now so you need to prepare." - after scholding both Yukino and Elly Nanjo put on his helmet and went to his hotel.

"Jeez, I hate when he's like that sometimes. Whatever, I'm going to visit Igor for a while. See ya." - Elly stood up and left the bar with Yukino and Maki doing the same.

"Why does she always visit Igor?"

"Who knows, they both enjoy the ocult and tarot reading, I guess. Eh, see you later, Maki."

"Bye, Yukino."

After that day all, except Naoya, started to the search for Kandori's research data. However Naoya didn't like staying still and accompanied Maki in some of her searches.

After three years one of them finally found it. Since his son didn't need more constant care and his wife is very comprehensive on his decisions Reiji took three facilities from Nanjo and one of them was the island of Yakushima. Since he never saw the beach he decided to take this place and for some reason he took his wife and child with him since he felt it was unfair that only him would enjoy the beach even though his mission was dangerous and it was too late to realize that the decision to take them along with him may have been imprudent but in a way it was good since he saw that they were happy playing in the water and he only thought how blessed he was to have such a beautiful family.

When 9:00PM hit the clock he went back to the hotel that Nanjo payed and Reiji started to plan how he would enter. He thought that entering during the Dark Hour was the smartest way to do it since there wouldn't be any guards considering they would be coffins at the time and he can deal with Shadows on his own. Nanjo told him before he left to not act without thinking, if he did Kirijo would act again against Nanjo, if Reiji managed to find Kandori's research then he needed to make it look that Nanjo had nothing to do with it. Yukino already took care of the scientists that might have memorized the entire document by threatening them and, just like Naoya said, beat them up even though she wasn't happy to do so. The plan was that after whoever finds Kandori's research Nanjo would order his people to hack into Kirijo's computers to delete any trace of copies of the documents leaving Takeharu without anything regarding artificial Persona users.

12:00AM hit the clock and after making sure that his family turned to coffins he decided to go to the hidden Kirijo facility that was on the island. Instead of busting the door open with his Persona he tried to find a ventilation shaft and found one but it was small, he luckily fits but it would take him some time to get through. While trying to make his way through he found a Shadow, Reiji barely could move his hands to at least attack it on his own so instead he used the smallest Persona he had in his repertoire.

"Dammit, this things are starting to piss me off. Poltergeist!" - the small Persona appeared and used a Garula spell on the Shadow destroying it.

"It's already been three years since I started to experience this stupid Dark Hour. When is it gonna end?" - he continued his way through and finally found an exit from the vents. All he saw were a fee coffins, he had a little bit more than 40 minutes to search for those documents, he thought it was enough to pull it off. In 27 minutes he searched in at least seven different rooms, he did it as quickly as possible before the Dark Hour ended. The only things he found were files about something called "Plume of Dusk", other things describing the moon, Death, how the Shadows manipulate time and space and something else...

"Hmm, I guess Nanjo will be interested in this... robot girls...? What the hell?" - He didn't find anything in this room, he went to the next one. Nanjo told him that the most possible place to find the research data was in either the scientists' offices or the lab itself, the only problem was that Reiji couldn't differentiate a scientist's office from a regular worker's office so he decided to look in every room possible.

He had 30 minutes left. While he walked down the hallway a door caught his attention, the plate on the door read "Anti-Shadow Weapon Storage."

"They already developed weapons to fight these things?" - he wondered what kind of weponry the Kirijo made to fight the Shadows. "Special Tanks?" - he thought. Reiji entered the room and all he observed were capsules but he couldn't see what were inside them, they were slightly beneath the ground, he ignored it and continued his search. He spent five minutes in the room reading all sorts of non-sensical documents he couldn't understand. - "Ugh, I'm tired of this... then again everyone did work in this more than I did. I remember Maki saying she got shot in the leg by something in one of these facilities." - after a quick look he couldn't find the documents, there weren't much to begin with, he was growing impatient, though. - "Godammit! Where the hell are these stupid papers!?" - after his outburst he heard a noise from behind him, it was a mechanical noise rising from the ground, it wad one of those capsules. - "Uh-oh." - he ran towards the door to leave as soon as possible but when his hand was reaching the doorknob he heard a gunshot and a bullet almost hitting his head. He quickly turned around but didn't see anything, he was calm trying to hear any sort of sound of the individual that shot at him. He quickly turned around again and threw a punch. His fist hit something hard... - "A girl!?" - what he punched was a girl that looked like a teenager possibly 15 to 16 years of age, she had short blonde hair and deep blue eyes and was wearing a gown. His hand started bleeding. The girl had her hand covered under the sleeve of the gown and was holding a rifle.

"Intruder, leave this facility or I will have to use force. You have ten second to comply." - the girl was pointing her rifle at Reiji, she wasn't having any doubts, she was serious about shooting him.

"I'm sorry, kiddo but I can't, I need to do something here."

"7, 6, 5..."

"Huh, would you at least hear before shooting?"

"There is no reason to. 4, 3..."

"Why is that?" - he was slightly nervous for some reason.

"Intruders need to learn their place. 2, 1, 0. Goodbye." - she started to shoot at Reiji.

"Shit! Mot!" - his Persona Mot shielded him from the gunfire. He ran to a nearby desk and threw it down so it can act as a shield instead of using his Persona, it was useless since the bullets were piercing the desk. He rapidly ran and decided to incapacitate the girl either mano a mano or with his Persona.

"Palladion." - she could also summon a Persona. The Persona rushed towards Reiji pointing at him with some sort of spear that was inside of itself.

"Should've guessed." - the girl should have either been a regular person not attacked by the Shadows or a Persona user. - "Changing tactics, then." - he summoned Mot and ordered to do the same but at the Persona. Mot threw a punch and clashed with Palladion's spear staggering the latter, Mot disappeared leaving Reiji completely uncovered, the girl wondered why would he leave himself open for attack and heard a noise behind her, a white baboon appeared, it was the Persona Thoth that Reiji summoned.

"Another... Persona. How...?" - the girl was surprised. Thoth hit her head with his book sending her flying to the wall.

"Wow, I think I over did it... oh she's still moving." - he walked towards her and summoned Mot back and the Persona formed a fist and slammed it to the wall, it was a threat. - "Listen, kiddo, you're gonna help me find something I need or else I'll punch your head so hard it's gonna detach itself from your body." - the girl froze for a moment and quickly calmed down.

"You are not serious about destroying me, I can see it in your eyes." - Reiji didn't flinch at her remark, in fact it's been years since he decided to stop being violent thus losing that threatening look he had as a teenager.

"I see, then I'll break your arm then, you can heal that way."

"... You are serious with that statement."

"Right? So, help me find what I need and I'll let you go."

"I can protect myself with my Persona."

"I'm stronger than you, kid, I'll rip your Persona in half if I need to."

"..." - she was staring at him calmly with a blank expression she never seemed to change.

"It looks like you realize that. Will you help me, then?"

"You seem kind."

"... I'm threatening to break your arm, what's the matter with you?"

"Forget I said anything. What do you need to find?"

"Research data about artificial Persona users. I want you to tell me where they are."

"I do not know, I've been inactive for various years. I am unaware of the activities that the Kirijo Group has done." - she stood up. - "Why do you need that data?"

"Your boss, Takeharu Kirijo, basically tried to gun down my friend and stole it from him." - Reiji leaned on the wall. - "Those documents are dangerous. It says that awakening a Persona unaturally is tragic for the user, either attacking them, killing them or worse turn them into a demon."

"A demon...?" - it looked like she didn't know what he meant by demon. She thought that maybe he meant Shadow. - "I see, then I'll help you out."

"You are willing to betray your boss, then."

"I believe that saving humans while dooming others due to the dangers of an artificial Persona is not any better than leaving them to die."

"At least you have your priorities straight." - Reiji gave her a proud smile, it was nice finding someone mature at her age.

"We need to hurry, then, the Dark Hour will end in 22 minutes." - she headed towards the door along with Reiji, he stopped her.

"By the way, I'm Reiji Kido... nice to meet you. What's your name?" - the girl turned around and looked at him with her beautiful blue eyes.

"... I am Aigis."


	4. Papillon Heart

Both Reiji and the girl named Aigis kept searching as fast as they could inside the Kirijo facility before the Dark Hour could end. They searched from room to room and with Aigis' help it was easier since, for some reason, she was quick at realizing what was useful and what wasn't. Reiji wasn't much of a talker but Aigis was worse as she never said a word aside from "understood" and "there is nothing here" which made Reiji think she's pretty anti-social so he tried to make small talk.

"So, uh... Aigis."

"Yes?"

"That's a weird name, are you a foreigner by any chance?"

"... No, Aigis was the name they asigned to me."

"Huh... how old are you?"

"What year is it?"

"2003."

"4 years of age, then, but with the appearance of a 16 year old teenager." - Reiji came to a full stop. - "What is it?"

"4 years old? What are you talking about? Also..." - Reiji noticed something else about Aigis. - "... why don't you have any feet?"

"Oh... I only told you my name. I am one of the 7th Generation of Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons, my name is Aigis."

Reiji was slightly astonished. - "... They weren't kidding with robot girls, then."

"Android would be more accurate."

"Robot girls in 1999 and at the time my computer worked like shit."

"Android would be-"

"More accurate, I know. Anyway... why no feet?"

"Higher movility and evasive opportunities. While it is true that Shadows are mostly agressive they know how to fight and read movements, having feet would benefit them at reading my moves, they'll see where my feet are trying to lead my body and attack there, the lack of feet benefits me at not only evasion but a higher jumping range as well."

"How does that work?"

"It works like... a springboard." - something separated from the base of her legs showing metalic parts inside. - "Doing this I can jump up to 7 meters." - it attached back again.

"Huh... neat." - after processing it after a while he understood what she meant. - "Since you're a weapon do you have any... uh... sisters? I don't think you're the only one made, right?"

"Correct, as I said I am one of the 7th Generation of Anti-Shadow Suppresion Weapons, there are more than me, my sister units."

"Where are they? Are they going to attack me just like you did?"

"Unlikely, they are either deactivated or destroyed, I believe I'm the only one active, I haven't sensed any other of my sister units here."

"Sorry."

"Why?"

"... Nevermind." - he was wondering if Aigis felt any sadness at the thought of the possibility of being the only android active or in human terms alive. Maybe she does feel something since she has a Persona and having a Persona indicates having a soul which is where they originate. - "She's as robotic as it gets, she talks weird and way to politely... it's uncomfortable." - he thought. - "Can't there be more in the other facilities?"

"I do no believe that is the case, this is the place where they build us and this is where we stay, it is our command center."

"But a friend of mine was shot in another facility by someone."

"... You have a group that breached other Kirijo facilities?"

"Shit, I said to much. I forgot she's on Kirijo's side, even if she's helping me I know it's momentary, she's still affiliated with Kirijo." - he thought, he feared that his friends might be in danger now, he felt like an idiot now that they were in danger. - "... I, uh... no, I meant that... uhm."

"Do not worry, it's okay. You said that you were searching a file then I assume your friends were doing the same, is that correct?"

"... Yeah, thanks."

"No need for gratitude, however you need to be careful with other people."

"I know, I just forgot you were with Kirijo for a moment."

"I told you that I believe that the good of humanity is my priority so I admire what you and your friends did for that goal."

"Heh, it took us pretty much three years to search all over the country."

"I see, you are certainly kind and admirable as I said before." - Aigis smiled as she said this making Reiji blush a bit.

"Dude, calm down, you're a married man with a child... and she's a robot, you wouldn't be able to cheat even if you wanted to... and she's only 4 years old... I feel sick." - he thought to himself. - "Thanks for the compliment but we better keep searching or the Dark Hour will end."

"Understood."

They ran and kept looking in every room possible as there was not much time left but enough to search most of the place. Aigis was quick, she flipped page after page rapidly like she wasn't reading at all but she explained to Reiji that she scans rather than read, like a printer which is faster and since it was rather dark due to the dark hour nullifying electricity she was of great help for him, his only source of light was a Persona.

"How was your first encounter with the masked freak?"

"Who?"

"Philemon, the butterfly dude."

"...?" - even if she was expressionless she actually managed to pull a confused stare towards Reiji. - "Mr. Reiji, are you one of those people that take drugs and go to, as they call it, those spiritual travels?"

"No... forget I said anything. What kind of information do they put in your head?"

"Mostly battle information while 17% are trivial information regarding data about culture in the past decades and enough understanding of the speech used in these days."

"Huh, okay." - he wondered what she gained by having that info on her. - "She didn't met Philemon? That's odd, all of us did, even Toro and the Persona users back in Sumaru." - he thought, he finds it weird that a Persona user gains a Persona without meeting Philemon... or Nyarlathotep. - "How did you get your Persona, Aigis?"

"When we are built the researchers use something they call plume of dusk, two of them, in our personality module. It is the same for other anti-shadow weapons."

"Plume of dusk?"

"Yes, it gives us an identity, a sense of self, all necessary to gain the ability of weilding a Persona. Both plumes of dusk form my papillon heart."

"So it's a soul then."

"The concept of soul is very abstract, what the researchers were positive of was that we got an identity, a personality to represent us as an individual."

"Then the mentality of being human."

"In a manner of speaking yes, if we mimic a human enough we get a Persona."

"That's not how it works, Aigis." - he leaned closer to her and looked at her in the eye. - "It's not about copying what a human does or feels, it's your soul and its strength that gives you a Persona, a great sense of self is enough to get a Persona but it means nothing without a soul, your soul is where your Persona resides and where it originates."

"I do not comprehend."

"I mean that you are human inside of you, your Persona proves that."

"I am not human, I am a machine, I cannot understand your reasoning."

"You are machine on the outside, that's obvious, but your thoughts, your moves, your words, your smile and your kindness are that of a human. Your soul is one of a human, Aigis." - no matter how he explained he noticed that Aigis still didn't understand what he meant, he sighed. - "Well, you'll understand what I mean someday, trust me. Come on, let's keep looking."

"Understood."

They kept searching on every room they could find.

"Have you looked in the director's office?"

"Nah, I thought it would be too obvious to look there so I too priority in the labs."

"I see, that makes sense but that sort of document seems to be extremely important and it needs to be secured."

"Which makes more sense that it won't be in the more obvious place."

"That may be but the director's office has a safe, we have time to search there."

"Fine, but first this room."

"Yes." - as Aigis flipped pages one caught her attention. - "Mr. Kido."

"Reiji's just fine, what is it?"

"Come here, please." - as Reiji reached her she showed him whay she found.

"It says here that the artificial Persona user project was dropped two months ago."

"It got canned? Why?"

"Apparently the side effects were too serious to handle for them. The artificial users were being attacked by their own Personas and few of them died or turned to... Shadows."

"Shadows? I thought they turned to demons."

"Demons?"

"Yeah, on Kandori's documents he said that the side effects involved someone having their Personas possesing them and transforming them to demons, it's like they become a more twisted version of the Personas they have."

"I understand, then the Kirijo Group must have used a different method from that of Kandori."

"Seems that way... considering that they can't extract Joker anymore they must've used a different manner."

"Joker? ... Is a night vigilante involved?"

"Seriously, what kind of stuff did they put in your head? No, nothing to do with that, something else... it's a long story, basically it's a curse that befell in a city three years ago thanks to a sadistic maniac."

"I see. They cancelled the project, do we still keep searching?"

"Yes, Takeharu Kirijo may have stopped but who knows how the next head of the Kirijo will do or maybe someone else will steal it, either way I better find it."

"Very well, I recommend we search in the directors office now."

"Yeah." - Reiji got worried, it seems there were multiple ways to make an artificial Persona user, this ones become Shadows instead of demons meaning that the process is different and they extract something else that isn't Joker, but he also wondered why Aigis wasn't considered an artificial Persona user, apparently she was genuine and hers didn't do harm to the user, so he wondered what was to process for these androids were to awaken their Personas and what exactly was this plume of dusk. - "Nanjo will be surprised of all this." - he thought. Even if Aigis was an ally Reiji nonetheless believed that the Kirijo Group was a threat, building weapons such as Aigis, the artificial Persona users even knowing full well on what price the user pays for awakening a Persona in a non natural manner, and them doing research on these creatures called Shadows which don't act like demons as they are far more violent and don't listen to reason... yes, the Kirijo Group are definitely a threat at the moment.

They arrived at the director's office, it was locked.

"It looks that this door needs a code to open, there has to be something important inside, I was right."

"Right you were, miss. You didn't know it was locked with a code?"

"No, I was inactive for four years and I only activate when Shadows appear inside or when intruders break in, like yourself."

"Cool... so, what's the code?"

"It's a six digit code, it will be difficult to decipher."

"Yeah and it will take time to figure it out... so I'll just break the door."

"They will find out someone was here if they see that the door to the director's office is destroyed."

"Wouldn't it be the same with the room we just fought in?"

"No, I can make the excuse that a Shadow got in. However there is a faster way to know the code."

"Really? How?"

"Do you smoke, Mr. Reiji?"

"I shouldn't but yeah, I do."

"Good, hand me your lighter." - Reiji did what she asked, afterwards Aigis summoned her Persona Palladion. - "I would use my own body but most of it is covered in fabric." - she used the lighter's fire on a metalic part in her Persona's body.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Soot, some of it will work as fingerprint powder."

"How do you know that?"

"I have a very basic understanding on chemistry so it may not work but I believe it will." - as Aigis kept burning the metal a black stain was beginning to form on it. - "It's working." - she smiled slightly, more of the soot was appearing on the metal with now being a palm sized stain of soot. - "Mr. Reiji, please call that Persona again, the baboon."

"Huh? Oh... Thoth." - the Persona appeared in front of Reiji and wondered what she wants with it and started to look both at Aigis and his currently summoned Persona. - "... Oh now I get it, you want to use its tail as a brush for the soot."

"Exactly, it won't be as beneficial as the brushes used for fingerprints but it will be enough."

"Heh, you're pretty smart." - Thoth gathered the soot on Palladion's metal with its tail and started to brush the pad on where the fingerprints are supposed to be. - "Cool, there are fingerprints showing up." - both Personas disappeared and started to look at the pad and where the fingerprints were placed. - "2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 0... nice, now to figure out how the combination is."

"It starts with 5 and ends with 9."

"How do you know that?"

"Shape and size of the fingerprint."

"... You might wanna explain."

"Generally speaking someone might press their entire fingerprint when entering the first and last digit, the ones in between tend to be partial fingerprints due to the person using the tip of their fingers... in theory at least."

"Then how do you know that it starts at 5 and not 9?"

"The fingerprint on that number is more visible than the other so it's safe to assume it starts with 5."

"Ugh... that's one hell of a speculation but... you were right so far so I'll trust you, enter the one you think is right, you're the smart one here."

"Roger." - Aigis started to study the pattern of the fingerprints and try to figure the combination. She then pressed 5, 2, 7, 0, 3, 9... nothing happened; 5, 7, 3, 0, 2, 9... nothing; 5, 3, 2, 0, 7, 9... nothing. - "Wait..." - she stood up.

"What is it?"

"Could it be...?" - she walked in front of the door and reached it with her hand... she opened the door. - "It's open."

Reiji just stood there confused. - "What do you mean 'open'?" - he started getting slightly annoyed.

"I... forgot nothing works in the Dark Hour, meaning the pad doesn't work, without power the door unlocks on its own."

"... You're telling me we lost almost 10 minutes in this door trying to figure out the what the numbers were, get enough soot, trying to figure out the combination of the code and all the explanation you gave me on how this thing works... all was for nothing, is that it?" - he looked angry and held his fist in front of him.

"12 minutes to be exact and yes, it was pointless... why are you staring at me like that, Mr. Reiji?"

"Idiot!"

As they were in the room it didn't last long for them to find the documents. Aigis found them in a false bottom in a drawer of the desk.

"Nice fi-"

"Palladion!" - the Persona went into a defensive state.

"Jesus, calm down! I said I was sorry, I already feel bad enough as it is."

"... You won't hit me again?" - there was a spring sticking out of her head.

"I won't..."

"... Very well." - the Persona disappeared.

"I also found another one similar but this is the one developed by Kirijo."

"I see, it is better for you to take both."

"Yeah, leaving this bastards with nothing."

"There are still a few minutes before the Dark Hour ends, it is adviced for you to leave, Mr. Reiji... I need to come back to my capsule so they do not notice I helped an intruder." - before Aigis could leave Reiji stoppes her.

"Aigis, wait."

"Yes? What is it, Mr. Reiji?"

"Thank you... for helping me."

"There is no need to thank me, I only did what was right."

"Heh, I know... and... don't forget what I said before."

"I won't, that talk about the soul intrigued me and I want to understand the meaning behind what you meant."

"Trust me, you'll find out one day." - he put his hand on her shoulder as a sign of trust and smiled at her... she also gave him a smile. - "Go, before the Dark Hour ends."

"Yes, it was nice meeting you, Mr. Reiji." - she started to run and disappeared from Reiji's sight.

He started to run as fast as possible before everything could turn back to normal, there were coffins around the place so they could be security or scientists, either way the alarms would sound and it will be impossible for him to escape.

"Better to make use of a Persona." - he summoned Poltergeist and ordered the Persona to use Sukukaja on him. - "Better, now I can run faster for at least a minute before the spell goes away." - he ran and ran until he was outside and saw a pair of gates blocking his path. - "What? Where were these gates when I got here? Dammit, I went inside that vent for no reason at all, I could've gone over this thing." - he called his Persona Mot and ordered to throw him above the tall wall, he passed the wall and landed on the other side, he was in the forest. He ran again trying to find his way to the beach, he tripped, he tore part of his clothes and got some cuts in his arms but in the end he managed to find the beach. - "Finally... I didn't need to run all the way back but I just had enough of that place." - he took out his cellphone, it wasn't functional due to the Dark Hour so he waited until it ended so he could call Nanjo to notice him he was succesful on retrieving the files and start to delete any copies Kirijo could have in his computers... the Dark Hour ended, the water of the sea turned back to normal. He dialed Nanjo's number.

"... Reiji? ... How are vacations?"

"They're pretty neat, there were some issues with I managed to get you a good souvenir."

"I see, thank you for the trouble."

"Wait till I tell you the things that happened here."

"Like what?"

"I'll tell you when I get back."

"Very well, I'm sorry but I need to make preparations for dinner."

"Okay, good luck with it."

"Yeah, see you soon." - Nanjo hang up with Reiji doing the same.

"That's the cue, he'll hack everything... and I need to pack now and leave first thing in the morning." - he sat down for a second, he was exhausted from when he fought Aigis and running away from the facility. - "Man, I'm not an old man yet but I'm not getting any younger either. Having a family and a job is really keeping me busy from being in shape." - he heard a noise from behind, he turned around and saw two men in black suits. - "Shit... did they found out?" - he thought.

"Sir, this area is off limits from civilians, I will ask you to leave."

Reiji sighed in relief. - "Yeah, sorry, I'll go now." - as he got up on his feet and started walking one of the men stopped him.

"Hold on... what happened to you? You have cuts and bruises all over."

"Ah, yeah, I was on an excursion and I separated from my group this morning, just now I managed to find my way to the beach."

"... You spent an entire day lost inside the forest?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I find that hard to believe and it also doesn't explain why your clothes are torn."

"A bear attacked me."

"A... bear? Do you think we're idiots? Lost inside a forest for 12 hours without getting notice on a lost person?"

"What can I say, my wife barely notices I exist."

"I... uh..." - the other man in black was starting to speak. - "I kinda believe him."

"Huh, why?"

"Well, that happened to me last week."

"... Is that why you didn't come to work last Thursday?"

"Yeah... I didn't see any bears but I did hear a growl."

"You got lost... also for 12 hours?"

"... Uhm... yeah."

"But you've been working here for 3 years now."

"I know."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"For that reason, getting lost in a place you've been working for 3 years is embarassing... that's why I said my daughter had a fever instead."

"That's coming out of your salary, you know?"

"... I know..."

"Anyway, you're free to go, sir." - the two men walked away.

"... Well, that went better than I expected. Heh, a bear, the shitty excuses my wife throws at me are rubbing off on me." - he went to the hotel and started packing, he was leaving the island tomorrow morning.

It was already nightime in Sumaru City and Reiji went to see Nanjo in a bar. All his friends were there with the exception of Mark and Yuka, all of them were involved in this situation now as they went through the trouble to travel the entire country for Kandori's documents.

"Is it just me or do we always gather in the same bar?"

"It's pretty quiet around here, Naoya and the bartender isn't one of those people to overhear conversations."

"I didn't say it because of that, Yukino. I mean... the guy hasn't changed the place since 1997, according to Maki, and always serves the same drinks, in fact I think mine has already gone past its expiration date, it's bitter and I swear I saw a cockroach a minute ago."

"Yeah, I just killed it."

"Naoya's right, Yukino, this place is starting to make me sick." - Elly said while keeping her feet away from the ground.

"So, Reiji, what did you find out in Yakushima? On the phone you sounded like you found something else other than the research data."

"More than I should've."

"Was the place infested with Shadows?" - asked Elly. - "Or demons?"

"We haven't seen demons since Sumaru, Eriko and I only found one Shadow, it was surprisingly empty of any signs of danger... except... well..."

"What is it?"

"It's hard to say... I uh... found a robot."

"A robot?"

"Yeah, a girl robot... with a Persona." - everyone looked at him as if he was crazy. - "I know it sounds ridiculous but I'm serious."

"You found a robot chick that can use Personas? Are you high or something?"

"No, Brown. The girl called herself as one of the 7th Generation Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons... and her name was Aigis. I know that it sounds crazy but it's true, Kirijo is in some shady shit, Nanjo."

"... I see."

"Are you seriously believing him?"

"Yes, Hidehiko, I don't see why he would lie about that."

"Fine... I guess you're right."

"Then, the bullet that hit me a few years back were one of those?"

"Maybe, however she said ahe was the only one of her units."

"Wait, said? You mean you talked to her?" - Elly kept getting her feet away from the floor as she saw a spider. - "My legs are getting numb..."

"She attacked before I could talk to her, I won but she was very agile. I managed to trick her and restrained her, after reasoning with her she actually helped me finding Kandori's data."

"A Kirijo affiliated robot helped you?" - Naoya asked while drinking his bitter drink. - "It tastes like vinegar."

"She said android was more accurate and yeah, she helped me."

"Why? She's machine, why help an intruder?"

"Her reason surprised me, Maki. She said that the side effects of an artificial Persona user sounded way too dangerous for humans. Dooming people to be artificial Persona users is no different than leaving them to die. She realizes that they may save people but she regards it as pointless if they can't help themselves." - everyone went silent as they heard what Reiji said. - "She may be just a machine but her having a Persona proves she has a soul."

"But wouldn't she be considered an artificial user as well?" - Naoya asked. - "Doesn't her Persona get hostile against her?"

"No, she's a natural. When they developed her the scientists used a pair of objects called Plume of Dusk."

"Plume of... Dusk?" - Nanjo asked.

"Yeah, and from what it does I don't think it's something tangible or maybe it is. This thing are used to give Aigis and her sister units an identity, to develop a self and then get a Persona. I mentioned Philemon to her but she never heard of anyone named that way, she didn't saw his butterfly either."

"Kirijo... what has he done?"

"I dunno, Nanjo but... from everything we have seen while searching all those facilities I think they are involved in this Dark Hour thing. I should've asked Aigis for more details."

"No need to. They had files about doing research on Shadows even before the Dark Hour first appeared, they had had data about something called Tartarus which I still don't know what they mean by that."

"Isn't Tartarus that place we went when St. Hermelin got frozen by the Snow Queen?"

"Ugh, don't remind me, going through that place without my Persona just to get it back was hell." - Yukino remarked.

"Yes but I doubt they meant the one you guys ventured in since the Snow Queen incident was something only we and the former students of St. Hermelin know. Once Tamaki and Satomi became affiliated with the detective agency they made sure the word on the Snow Queen incident didn't spread."

"How?"

"Most of the former student don't talk about it, they rather forget, but the other ones... well... Tamaki and Satomi literally made them forget, I don't know how, they wouldn't explain."

"It doesn't matter, what else were you gonna say?"

"Right, aside from the so called Tartarus they get involved in the creation of artificial Persona users and also weapons to destroy the Shadows... they are indeed involved but I don't know how."

"I may know." - said Reiji. - "While doing searching with Aigis we found stuff saying that Shadows have the power to control time and space, and if they appear during the Dark Hour..."

"Yes... the Dark Hour is when time stops and we enter some sort of another reality... Kirijo made research about the Shadows years before 1999 which is when the Dark Hour first started."

"Yeah... Kirijo may be involved with the creation of the Datk Hour." - Naoya said. - "After you said all of that it's obvious they had something to do with it."

"Are you serious...? Dude, what the hell were they thinking?" - Brown coughed due to the dust in the place. - "What the... there's a freaking moth in my drink!" - Yukino only laughed at him.

"I don't know... but I did hear that Takeharu Kirijo's father, Kouetsu Kirijo, went insane 4 years before he died which just happened to be in 1999 in the same day the Dark Hour started... maybe it was because of him. Maybe his madness led him to do those expermients with the Shadows, something went wrong in 1999 and this bizarre event happened which the only ones that managed to first get a glimpse of in our group was Naoya and Mark back in America."

"But... Kei, why did that old man made research on Shadows?"

"I can answer that." - Yukina said while stomping the floor due to the insects. - "It looks like that old fart wanted the power of the Shadows, that is controlling time and space for who knows what reason. However that was only the beginning, afterwards he ditched that plan for something else but I don't know what."

"Hmm... what made him change his priority for something else? Controlling time and space sounds like the ultimate power, was there something more powerful...?"

"Shouldn't the question be how he found out about the Shadows? They don't live in the real world, only in that freaky Dark Hour thing." - said Brown while throwing his glass out the window, he forgot about the moth in it. - "I may not be bright but if you can't see something, the Shadows, in the place it's supposed to be, our reality, then how do you know it exists?"

"Nice catch there, dummy." - Brown just looked at Yukino for a second. - "What?" - he threw a spider at her face. - "Aaaahhh! What the hell is your problem?"

"Mwahahaha, that's what you get!"

"He actually brings a good point, Nanjo. I spent 3 years traveling the country and I found nothing that could be related to the Shadows until the Dark Hour happened, something must have made him know of their existence."

"I should've asked Aigis on that plume of dusk thing and how Kirijo knew about it as well."

"In short we don't know how Kouetsu Kirijo found out about the plumes of dusk and the shadows." - Elly pointed out with her legs already giving out on her. - "He couldn't discover the Shadows since they can't exist in normal circumstances so... maybe he found that plume of dusk, somehow, and that lead him to all of that crazy stuff."

"That sounds good enough, Nanjo." - Maki said. - "That Aigis girl said that when they built her they used that plume of dusk so maybe it exists in our reality." - Naoya smacked away a cockroach Maki had on her shoulder... she felt nauseous. - "Thanks, Naoya... I can't stand this place anymore."

"It may be a tangible object that may exist... but how did he come across of such an object?"

"Hold on..." - Yukino interrupted. - "Isn't that Aigis a machine as well? How was she able to work during the Dark Hour?" - after hearing that Nanjo was perplexed, Yukino was right, how could Aigis be able to operate during the Dark Hour, a time where nothing works? Aigis was just a regular looking machine according to Reiji which could summon a Persona...

"... Nothing worked aside from Aigis, right, Reiji?"

"Yeah, now that I think about it she shouldn't be able to move."

"The only other special thing she has are those plumes of dusk which grant her a Persona... could it be it has something to do with it?"

"From all the times I visit Igor he told me Personas are tamed Shadows, that's why when Maya's group fought their Shadow Selves their Personas had a change in them..." - Elly said. - "... and if those plumes can give a robot a Persona then maybe there's a connection."

"That sounds plausible... I don't fully understand how it works nor how or why it gives Personas but it's safe to say if they are a tangible object that exists outside the Dark Hour. Said object grants a Persona which are related to Shadows, beings that control time and space so maybe that's why Aigis can move during the Dark Hour. Then that was what drove Kouetsu to do research on it and by extension Shadows and the creation of the Dark Hour. How he got his hands on it is still a mystery, it may have been by chance or maybe not."

"Shut uuuuuup..." - Brown was resting his head on the table frustrated. - "Dude, this sounds way to complacated, how did you find out that much about it?"

"I agree with him, I couldn't fully understand how you got to that conclusion, man."

"Really, Naoya?"

"I was never the studious type, Yukino. I don't even know what half of my Personas originate from, even Reiji is out of it." - Reiji had a look on his face that his head was about to explode due to the flood of information given. - "Either way, I do understand what you mean. Now we need to find out why the Dark Hour started to occur..." - he sighed. - "Let's just go home, I don't feel well."

"Me neither, this place is too dirty and disgusting." - Naoya and Maki stood up together, the others followed up. As they walked outside Reiji caught the attention of Yukino.

"Uh... Yukino..."

"What's the ma-" - something walked inside her mouth. - "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" - she went crazy and summoned her Persona Durga.

"Yukino, calm down!" - Reiji and Naoya grabbed her arms while their Personas, Vishnu and Mot, were holding Durga down so it wouldn't do any spell.

"LET ME BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND! I'LL MAKE IT PASS AS ACCIDENT, I SWEAR!" - she was struggling to set herself free. - "A FUCKING BUG GOT INTO MY MOUTH, PLEASE LET ME BURN THIS SHIT HOLE DOWN!"

They kept struggling with Yukino with both Naoya and Reiji receiving hits to the jaw because of her elbows. After some time she calmed down, she cried for at least 5 minutes due to the disgust. They all left to their respective houses with Nanjo and Elly accompanying Yukino to support her. Nanjo already had Kandori's research and gained more information that gave context to most of his doubts, there was more he needed to do but for now he should stay away from Kirijo for a while.

-Present day-

Nanjo arrived at Tatsumi Port Island. It looked like a nice place, the sun shining strongly reflecting its light on the surface of the sea. Everything looked lively, the people being active, kids running and teenagers being just teenagers. The warm wind of spring blowing his way giving him a sense of peace.

"I haven't seen this place in a while, nice as always."

"Sir..."

"Did you find out what room it was?"

"Yes, she lives on the 8th floor, her room is at the end of the hallway."

"You couldn't get the number of the room?"

"I... forgot the number, sir."

"Haha, it's okay, just make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Yes, sir!"

Nanjo walked to the other side of the road to the apartment Mitsuru lives in, it was quite a sight, the building was tall and very luxurious.

As he got inside he talked to the receptionist asking if miss Mitsuru Kirijo was in her room, the receptionist said she was on a trip and would come back later today.

"May I ask who's looking for her?"

"A friend, I came to visit her. Thank you for your time, I'll return later." - he summoned a Persona, Omoikane, and used Pulinpa on the receptionist to confuse him so Nanjo could get past him and find Mitsuru's room. He got into the elevator and pressed the button for the 8th floor.

"... He did say at the end of the hallway but... he didn't tell me if it was hallway on the left or the one on the right." - he walked left. He passing by door after door he reached the room where Mitsuru may live, he didn't know if he should be seen by her through the peephole or not, if he doesn't then she wouldn't open and be on the defensive but if he did then she would probably attack him because she would feel threatened... either he may have to fight her again so he just stood in front of the peephole. He knocked on the door... no answer, knocked again and still no answer. - "The receptionist was telling the truth, she isn't here. Hmm... it seems I need to break in, impressive that I need to use a technique Yukino used when she was a delinquent. For a man of my class this is humiliating." - he took a pair of metal objects out of his pocket, he was trying to pick the lock of the door. It took him a few minutes but he managed to open the door.

He went in and saw a dark room, scattered files on the table in front of a large sofa, a large sized bed meant for two but possibly just utilized by Mitsuru herself, a large TV connected to a CPU and rather medium sized windows. Nanjo moved the courtains from the windows so the light of outside could enter, he sat down on the sofa and started reading all the files he could, all related to the Dark Hour, Persona users and himself.

"I'm flattered... she knows I took part of the SEBEC scandal, as well as my friends, and yet not that we were able to use a Persona." - The Dark Hour caused by her grandfather in this town, anti-shadow weapons and... - "Tartarus, I got lost in that place for three hours... or rather three days if we go by the time frame of the real world. Dealing with the Dark Hour for almost 10 years was surely a nuisance for Mitsuru and myself as well." - he kept reading this file and some other trivial ones until he found something that made him irritated. - "A device that... emulates the Dark Hour!?" - He got up and walked towards the window with his back facing it so the light makes it easier for him to read the file. - "Her ergonomics laboratory developed it... that hypocritical woman..." - he threw away the file in disgust back at the table, put his hand on his face trying to process what he read, remembering the horrors he witnessed in the Dark Hour. - "What on earth is she thinking?"

"I should ask you the same." - Nanjo gasped, he heard a voice but didn't know from where, the room was indeed empty... he froze, his eyes widened and slowly turned around, he saw none other than Mitsuru standing on the edge of the window smiling and holding a rapier at Nanjo's neck. - "Don't move or you'll regret it."

"We're on the 8th floor, how did you...?" - he was sweating. - "... how did you get all the way up here?"

"Did you forget? Artemisia's whip is really helpful as a long range weapon and in this case a climbing rope."

"The receptionist..."

"Exactly, it was a mistake talking to him."

"Why do you think I did? I did not come for ill purposes."

"Indeed why I wonder? We fought, you overheard my coversations and now you break into my apartment..." - she smiled mockingly again and held her rapier firmly. - "So... you can talk, I don't think you have any other choice now, Kei Nanjo, explain yourself."


	5. Deaf Ears

Mitsuru's rapier was held firmly at Nanjo's throat, she wasn't moving an inch from her stance. She didn't saw him as an enemy but neither as a friend, she needed to defend herself if she was finghting a Wild Card like Aigis... nonetheless she felt as a hypocrite with her claiming they fought to sign her reluctance to trust him when in fact she started the whole debacle at attacking him and placing a spy under his nose, however it all was for a just cause, she needed the research files of Takahisa Kandori.

"What an inventive way to climb a building... I wonder what led you to do such thing?" - he smiled. - "Was it because you thought I would attack you the moment you entered the room?" - his smile slowly faded and his hand fixed his glasses. - "... Or was it fear?" - Mitsuru didn't notice him moving at all, no... it wasn't him, it was his Persona. She was shocked at how much control he had of his power.

"Was that his Persona?" - She thought while keeping an eye on Nanjo. - "Does he have that much control over his power? He uses his Personas as if they were extentions of his own body." - Mitsuru was calm, however, she was sure Nanjo wasn't in position to make a move, he wasn't stupid, he knew what Mitsuru was doing. - "Fear? Nonesense, back then I wasn't prepared to meet another Persona user, less a Wild Card."

"Wild Card...?" - He didn't know what she was talking about. Nanjo sighed, he noticed that Artemisia's whip was placed behind Mitsuru, she was using the whip as some sort of shield if he ever tried to attack her from behind with whatever Persona he had with him. - "Clever." - He thought but he wasn't here to fight her but he needs to get out of her grasp. Mitsuru was on a great defensive state, Artemisia defending from back attacks and frontal attacks, her whip was covering the user's body.

"But... your Wild Card feels different from Aigis." - she murmured.

"Aigis?" - He thought, he was surprised that he heard that name again. - "Could it be...? Yes, there obviously can't be another one. So... Aigis works with her... it was to be expected, Reiji left her in Yakushima that day after all." - That's right, Reiji needed to leave her there, if Kirijo found out that one of their androids escaped they would have pursued her and eventually reach Nanjo and learn of his involvement in getting the files back. - "She mentioned that Wild Card thing again. What on earth is she talking about?" - he noticed it was related to the power of Persona but couldn't figure out what it was precisely... he had to ask, something was bugging him. - "You keep saying 'Wild Card'... but I have no clue on what you mean."

"Don't play the fool with me, Nanjo."

"What would I gain in lying to you, Mitsuru?" - he slightly turned his head so he can have a better look at her. - "You seek Kandori's files, this Wild Card talk seems to have nothing to do with it, I see no point in lying on a matter that differs from the other." - he was calm, he wasn't taking her seriously.

"He really doesn't know what it is?" - Mitsuru thought, she still wasn't looking away, she was on alert on any movements Nanjo could make.

"I only came to talk, Mitsuru... I really don't wish to fight. Please put your weapon away."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because you're not dead."

"What...?" - she heard the voice from someplace else... Mitsuru saw Nanjo in front of the door of her apartment. She froze in place, confused, Nanjo was right in front of her being restrained by her rapier but also in the front door.

"I could have easily pushed you out the window, maybe that's enough proof for you that I do not wish to harm you. In fact, ever since our first encounter I never tried to do so." - He was leaned on the door folding his arms, calm as he always was.

Mitsuru was still trying to comprehend what her eyes were witnessing, two Nanjos, one at the edge of her rapier looking at her, blinking, the other on the front door looking at her while fixing his clothes. She knew one wasn't the original but didn't know which, maybe she still held the original in front of her since there's no possible way he could have gone and walk away just like that, then again maybe a spell was in place and the original was the other one, a confusion spell maybe. - "It must be." - Maybe the original is the one on the door, the one in front of her was too quiet and still, it was just blinking at her direction, the other one was talking.

"Yes, it is obviously a confusion spell, now lower your weapon and let us talk. I have to ask you what these papers are and why on earth your laboratory is working on a device that can emulate the Dark Hour." - Mitsuru saw the frustration in Nanjo's eyes as he said this, she understood what he was feeling, as a Persona user he must have experienced the Dark Hour for so many years just as she did.

Mitsuru put her rapier away, complying with Nanjo's request, she got down from the window and walked towards the couch, as she did she saw that the Nanjo from the door started to vanish, she sighed. - "Again..." - as she saw this Nanjo walked past her and sat on the couch... in the end, Nanjo never moved from his position, he was always at her captivity, he never moved an inch. - "... Do you do this kind of thing on purpose?"

"A warrior always needs to use his brain rather than brute force, Mitsuru." - he gave her a smile as he rests his chin with his hand. - "... And Pulinpa as well."

Mitsuru sighed in defeat. - "I was too fixated on you and your moves and I missed the most obvious one..." - she sat on the couch in front of Nanjo. - "... when your Persona accomodated you glasses, I thought you were taunting me. Admirable, your moves are subtle."

"I appreciate the compliment, but I do have to admit that you surprised me when you appeared on the window with your blade restraining me."

"I actually thought that you would set a trap on the door and so I thought outside the box, an entrance through the window." - they both looked at each other and let out a faint laugh, they admired each others wit and tactics. However, Nanjo was quick to put a straight face, he still needed information on these documents he found on Mitsuru's table.

"There are things we need to talk about. I came here only to talk about yesterday's incident in my home... but my priorities changed after reading this. I have to say it is hypocritical of you on trying to shame me of having Kandori's data and yet you develop a device that emulates the Dark Hour. For what purpose?" - Mitsuru only looked away, feeling shame. - "Mitsuru..."

"I had no part in it. That device is a box that recreates the dark hour in a failed manner, the raidius of its effects are small but Shadows may still manifest. Do not worry, we took care of them some months ago." - Mitsuru leaned against the back of the couch, feeling down talking about what she called an "utter stupidity" of her group. Nonetheless she felt obligated to talk of this things to Nanjo since, no matter where you look at it, their groups were allied financially in some level with both creating a motto which now became ironic given the situation they were in.

"I see... what about Tartarus, did it have anything to do with the Dark Hour?"

"Yes..." - Mitsuru began. - "My grandfather with his team of scientists were doing research on Shadows, they garhered many in one place and attempted to amalgamate them. The experiment went wrong, Shadows went out of control and caused an explotion."

"The explosion in Tatsumi Port Island that took many lives... I heard of it."

"The school I attended was the place where the explosion took place and there is where Tartarus originated."

"I remember that the Dark Hour just vanished one day, the clock hit twelve o'clock and nothing happened. I assume that was your doing."

"..." - Mitsuru hesitated, that day, two years ago was when they won a fateful battle but it also was the day when their dear leader, their friend made the ultimate decision, the use of his own life. The thought made her chest hurt, it was a painful memory, when they found him seemingly sleeping on the rooftop of the school... her friend Yukari was the first one to break down in tears when he didn't respond to their calls, their shakes and yells, her yells of sadness as her heart breaks with every second her hand was holding his; Junpei looking away feeling guilty and frustrated of times he insulted him, fought him and the jelousy he felt once but he cried mostly because he lost a good friend; Akihiko looking at his lifeless body which had a smile, he was proud of his leader, though he couldn't hold back the tears as much as he wanted to since he lost another person he considered a family; a tearful Fuuka holding a Ken who was crying his heart out for losing another loved one; Koromaru whimpering at his master's side believing he would wake up soon; Mitsuru herself was biting her lip as she lost another friend who taught her what was happiness, she couldn't hold herself up as her knees gave out and started to silently sob holding her mouth so no sound could come out; Aigis... she was smiling... although forced as she just lost her reason of being, the one who taught her what it was to be alive, what was having a heart and no matter how much time passed and who she loses, she would always have the bonds she formed, but nonetheless she was happy that he managed to rest with no fear in his voice but with joy and peace. While it's true they fought and won, only one truly won. - "No..." - Her chest was bursting with grief but couldn't cry anymore as she already cried everything out, she was proud of her leader.

"Oh?"

"It was the field leader of our group, Minato Arisato."

"... I apologize, I know of his passing." - he felt for her as Nanjo noticed her eyes, she was sad.

"Thank you..."

"How did he do it...?"

"Like that..." - she began. "... he used his life essense to seal a being."

"... A being?"

"Yes, a being called Nyx who was referred to as the mother of all Shadows. She was death incarnate so it was impossible to defeat so our leader used other means, he used his soul to seal Nyx ending the Dark Hour and saving the world... no... his soul became the seal and is guarding Nyx this very moment but... I am not sure if he is conscious or not but I believe he isn't."

"Another young soul sacrificing himself for the world... what a shame." Nanjo whispered recalling the actions of Tatsuya Suou back in 2000. He sighed as he leaned back. - "... I remember, the moon was seemingly falling and all normal people were experiencing the Dark Hour, turning into Shadows wreaking havoc." - that day he fought alongside his friends trying to defeat Shadows and protecting people who couldn't defend themselves.

"Yes, it was a nightmare."

"Certainly..." - both went silent, Mitsuru reminiscing and Nanjo processing the new information, now he knew why the Dark Hour came to be and why it disappeared, all because of a boy who sacrificed his life for the world. He felt empathy but not sadness, he never met the boy but realizd that he was a great individual. The silence continued.

* * *

Meanwhile...

"Aww... Igor, how are you so good with cards? This is the third time you win." - Elly was as usual visiting Igor in the Velvet Room. They usually talk about fortune telling and what fate holds in the cards, how fusion works, sometimes questions regarding Philemon but Elly felt like playing a game which Igor, as a servant, had to comply but enjoyed himself regardless since he appreciates the times she came to visit.

"Now, now my dear, I told you many times since you were just a teenager to keep a calm mind and read the movements of your opponent." - he picked up the cards that were laid on the table and shuffled them.

"I know but you're hard to read, I can win against my co-workers always but you and Nameless are impossible, Belladonna doesn't play games, Demon Painter is 'too cool' for it, Margaret and Marie never want to play and are doing nothing and poor Theo is working like a slave for her sister and is never around."

"For your information I am writing and it's none of your business on what I do with my time. I just came back to the Velvet Room and you already give me crap?" - Marie hissed from the other side of the room. Apparently she came back from somewhere recently and some months ago she decided to see why Igor is sometimes absent from Yu's Velvet Room.

"Fine, jeez, sorry miss emotional. You said you just were on a hot spring and you're still angry at everything?"

"Whatever." - Marie kept writing on her handbook, tearing paper after paper. After a while she gasped. - "I got it!"

"Marie, you need to be respectful to Master Kirishima." - Margaret got into Marie's train of thought interrupting her inspiration.

"Dammit..." - she lost the poem that was floating in her head. "But Yu is our guest, not her."

"Even so, she once was and apparently still is our Master's guest, be respectful." - she remained silent for a moment. - "But... my brother is of my concern, I beg for you to not interfere with family affairs." - she asked Theo to bring her something... apparently a manga.

"Talk about being respectful..." - Marie whispered trying so that Margaret doesn't hear her.

"Right... speaking of which... where are Nameless, Belladonna and Demon Painter?" - Elly asked while picking up carts from the deck. - "I haven't seen them in a while... and by that I mean years."

"Ah yes... I granted them some years of vacations." - Igor picked his cards from the deck.

"Years!? Shouldn't it be just a month normally?"

"My dear, Nameless and Belladonna have played and sang for two centuries and with the advancement of technology I recorded their play and it now currently runs on a loop." - he took a card from the deck. - "But of course they will eventually come back, that recording isn't as effective as their natural talent."

"What about Demon Painter? He started working here in 1999."

"He prefers working with the other two so he is accompanying them."

"Uh... was Philemon good with that decision?" - she took a card from the deck and at first glance she frowned.

"I had to convince him but in the end Master Philemon complied." - he placed the cards on the table. - "Do not worry, you will see them again."

"I lost again!?" - she threw the cards around, Igor laughed a bit at her reaction.

"Yo, Margaret." - Marie called out whispering. - "Who's this Philemon guy? OW!" - Margaret smacked Marie's head. - "What was that for!?"

"Do not be disrespectful to our Master, Marie." - she said with a firm and threatening voice. - "You shall refer to him as Master Philemon, understood?"

"Yeah, yeah, you could've told me instead, I didn't know he was the big boss here." - the smack on the head gave her inspiration again, though so she took the opportunity. "The ilusive man, our mas-"

*SLAM*

"Godammit!"

"Sister!" - it was Theodore, he came back with the thing Margaret asked for. - "Oh, Master Kirishima, it is a pleasure to see you again."

"You're so sweet, Theo. I told you to call me Elly, it's fine." - she gave Theo a gentle smile like she always did.

"I cannot, a guest of our Master should be treated with the utmost respect." - he bowed with his hand on his chest. - "And because it is you who has always been so kind to me that I must treat you as such."

"Aww... you're so cute, Theo." - Elly couldn't help but blush a bit and smile at his politeness.

"You flatter me, Master Kiri-"

"Theo!"

"Y-yes! I'm coming, sister! Excuse me." - he ran towards Margaret with a bag in his hand. - "Here it is."

"Poor Theo, he's too good for them. Igor, why don't you do something?"

"I rather not dwell in the affairs of my assistants, they need to learn for themselves how to live their lives, I cannot do anything for them."

"Oh, okay... still, poor Theo." - all Igor could do was nod at the statement. He does feel sorry for Theodore but he must learn to stand up for himself.

"I am pleased, Theo, you did good." - Margaret sighed in relief. - "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure... such a vast story with great ammount of creativity in powers and battles." - she sighed again but almost as if she was in love. - "I resent the fact the author stopped using Hamon, but it doesn't matter." - she opened the magazine and started reading.

"Why do you like that thing so much? The story is weird and the powers are ridiculous, I mean how the hell do you erase time? It doesn't make sense."

"Why are you awful at poems?" - Marie gasped at Margaret's response. - "You get ideas from random situations and phrases. They don't rhyme, they don't mean anything and the last paragraph never makes sense, I mean how can you end a poem about a pianist with 'to the bathroom he went'?"

"I... I..." - tears were showing on Marie's red face. - "Youstupidmoronicoldhagihateyouuuu!" - she ran to a door that leads to Yu's Velvet Room crying at the insults Margaret threw at her about her poems, her passion.

"Margaret, was that necessary?"

"I apologize you had to witness such childish behaviour from Marie, Master Kirishima. Now if you'll excuse me." - she got up from her seat and walked away, outside of the Velvet Room.

"What's her deal?"

"Do not mind her, Master Kirishima, she... doesn't like when people insult her favourite 'literature'..." - Theo sat down to rest since he ran to get the latest issue of JoJolion even if it has already been out for a week.

"Even so..." - Elly looked at Igor who pulled out a chess board. - "But I suck at chess, Igor... and you know that." - Elly gave Igor a playful smile as she discovered that Igor chose a game she's not good at. - "Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Oh, I wouldn't dare to, Miss Elly. Well then, shall we begin?" - as always Igor had that smile on his face.

"Hehe, sure thing, sweety."

* * *

"Nanjo..." - the silence broke. - "... what did you mean by another young soul'?"

"It's..." - he took a deep breath and continued. - "It's a story too grand and heavy to comprehend... and to accept."

"I have seen many bad situations and things that are incomprehensible and here I am."

"It started in 1999, he was just a kid, he didn't deserve that fate."

"A kid?"

"... No, he was already 18 years old but... considering what he went through I can't help but to call him as such. He went through a lot of hardships that could break a man and yet he stood strong."

"Was he your leader as well?"

"No... the leader of my group of friends is living a happy life right now."

"Then who was it?"

"His name was Tatsuya Suou, a high schooler from Sumaru City." - he leaned closer as he rests his arms on his knees. - "He... was from another world or rather another timeline... he called it the other side."

"From another world? Timeline? What are you talking about?"

"The Tatsuya Suou I met, his mind, was inside the Tatsuya Suou of this world."

"Nanjo..."

"I'll try to keep it short. The Tatsuya of the other side witnessed the destruction of his world along with his friends. Sumaru was unharmed but the rest of his world was devastated... one of Tatsuya's friend, Maya Amano, got stabbed by a spear but it wasn't a regular spear... it was the spear of Longinus. A cut from said spear causes the wound to never heal which made Amano bleed to death."

"That... sounds awful." - she didn't believe the story but she didn't thought Nanjo had a reason to lie to her.

"Tatsuya's friends treated her like she was a big sister and sometimes like a mother. Her death caused a great ammount of grief among them but they had the chance to revive her."

"... Really? How?"

"They... had to renounce their past."

"Renounce their past? What are you talking about?"

"Erase the time of their childhood, the time when all of them met."

"Did all of this really happen? It all sounds too fantastical to be real."

"It did."

"It sounds... cruel."- Mitsuru started to believe what Nanjo was telling. That story made her feel sad, that he had to live such life and forget the happiness he once experienced.

"It is cruel, everything they went through goes beyond cruel... but it does not end there." - Nanjo had a somber look on his face, even though he didn't experience such thing he felt the frustration in everyone when Tatsuya "left" them after they defeated Nyarlathotep. - "Tatsuya refused to forget, he refused to forget the time they spent together... of course he regretted in doing so. That was his sin that caused the world to be in danger."

"Why did it happen? Why did he refuse if that sacrifice would have saved his loved one?"

"He didn't want to be alone again, they were the only bonds he truly cherished and the only ones he had. He neglected the fact that if he complied the world would have been saved as well."

"I see..." - she understood what that young man might have felt. Losing all your friends must be a painful experience for someone... yes, now she's starting to comprehend.

"That created a paradox which caused the world to be in danger once more."

"He felt guilty about it didn't he?"

"Worse than that... he felt more than guilt. He caused everything to be in danger again, he got Maya Amano involved once more and in the end..."

"With every sin comes a punishment of equal measure..." - what could this feeling in her chest be? It wasn't empathy but... remorse for this young man.

"Indeed. He redeemed himself in the end but not without paying a price." - Nanjo lowered his gaze. - "The consciousness of Tatsuya from the other side went back to where he belonged, a dead world where Maya Amano is dead and none of his friends know who he is... except him who recalls everything that transpired, their friendship, their laughs, their cries... a sin that became a punishment that will never end until the day he dies. He sacrificed his life as well, but unlike your friend who died to save humanity this one lives in a dead and empty world to keep humanity safe, I am honestly not sure which of the two is more dreadful..."

"I... I don't know what to say." - her chest was aching, such terrible thing that happened to... just a kid. - "How can a teenager endure all of that by himself?" - she thought. She was at a loss for words at what she just heard, she saw Nanjo's eyes and noticed the regret in them. - "What happened to the rest?"

"Amano decided to distance herself from Tatsuya as well with the other three, because if they remember the events of the other side this world will be destroyed. Tatsuya and his friends are living regular lives as of today, in fact Tatsuya became a police officer like his father and brother."

"But..."

"Amano... the last time I spoke to her she was still depressed but managed to keep herself up in high spirits."

"That sounds good yet sad no matter how positive you might want to look at it."

"Indeed, my friends and I thought so as well."

"You are not telling me everything are you, Nanjo?"

"No and believe me it's better that way." - he looked down at his feet.

"... Very well, I'll trust your word." - that story was hard to swallow, it was tragic for one man and a woman but happy for everybody else. She was wondering... after 12 years... what was Tatsuya Suou doing right now on the other side? Is he still alive...?

* * *

Meanwhile...

Aigis was walking down the hallway as quietly as possible but of course her heavy metalic body was not helping.

"I now comprehend what Yukari feels when she discovers that she gained weight... I feel fat." - Aigis said with a sad expression on her face even if she knew gaining weight was impossible for her. She kept sneaking in the vicinity she was ordered to infiltrate. - "Even so... I feel as if I was that man from that video game Junpei always plays. I will include a cardboard box and a bandana in my equipment on future missions." - as she said this she reached her destination, in front of her was a safe. "The mission briefing said to be careful as there might be traps or enemy forces near the objective... I do sense something but my sensors aren't getting any signals." - she could only call it a gut feeling but either way she ignored it and kept up with her mission. - "How ironic..."

"Hey!"

"!" - she looked around but didn't saw anything.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you ya' toaster!"

"... Toaster?" - the voice was close, it came from behind her, she looked but still wasn't able to see anything but the voice was definitely coming from there. - "Who's there? Please show yourself, I will not harm you."

"But I will if you don't leave, Megaman!"

"... Megaman?" - she realized that whoever was there wasn't really good with insults, toaster was an overused one and Megaman, while somehow accurate, it was hardly an insult.

"I'm here, Chobits!" - as the voice said this a figure started to appear in front of Aigis.

"Cho- huh?" - what she saw was a floating yellow jar with what seemed to be the star of David engraved on it but she could be wrong. - "A jar...?"

"With me inside!" - a small greenish thing popped out from inside the jar, it had a couple of matching coloured horns, red mischievous looking eyes and smile.

Aigis was completely bewildered on what was in front of her, she never encountered something like this creature before. - "Are you saying you will attack me if I don't comply with your orders?"

"Yes! Leave or the almighty Agathion will bri-"

"Athena." her primary Persona, Athena appeared behind her, a woman with white robes, a blue shield with a symetrical engraving of a face covering most of her front and a large spear on her hand. The Persona used the spear on the so called Agathion cutting it in half.

"AAGGGHH!" - the creature's sliced up body disappeared.

"Oh... I think I overdid it. I wonder what that was...?" - she turned around facing the safe. - "Those eyes and horns made it look devilish... I felt like a demon slayer, I will aquire a red leather coat after I finish this mission." - Junpei was a bad influence on Aigis as she spends too much time with him due to his hobbies, such as playing video games or play baseball with him, tend to give her some new battle tactics but also admires said video games... too much sometimes as she once tried to buy a huge robot that looked like a big man in a diving suit with a big drill for a hand but of course no such thing was on sale which made her feel disappointed so instead Junpei got her an action figure of a cyborg ninja. - "Resuming mission."

* * *

"You kept mentioning something about a Wild Card, what is that?" - Nanjo frowned. - "..."

"Our leader had an ability to summon a great quantity of Personas, I remember him saying being able to summon over 160 of them ranging from creatures of various lores and religions to a floating pumpkin with a hat or a snowman." - Mitsuru remembered her leader constantly doing a rare spell with those two Personas, it was a very effective spell but he once revealed that he did it because he found it funny that a snowman and a floating pumpkin were doing stand up comedy... he always had a weird sense of humor. - "He never spoke of said power until my friend Aigis received it as well."

"Aigis has that power too..." - he thought.

"Apparently the Wild Card has infinite potential, as she phrased it, along with the Fool Arcana."

"In short your previous leader and this Aigis were able to summon Personas from all Arcanas, is that correct?"

"Yes, however they were only able to have 12 Personas with them, not more. Aigis said it was like her soul and our leader's not having 'room' for more."

"Interesting..."

"I was surprised when I saw you were also a Wild Card."

"Hmm? Oh, I am nothing of the sort, Mitsuru." - he leaned back on the couch and crossed his legs.

"Huh?"

"Unlike your previous leader, me and my friends are not from the Fool Arcana, we have Arcanas of our own."

"So, your friends have the power to summon multiple Personas as well." - that was a shocking revelation for her, maybe Nanjo's group would have finished exploring Tartarus in just a week if they had that power.

"That's right but we do not have this infinite possibility."

"You don't?"

"No, for example, my Arcana is the Hierophant and I am only compatible with only a select number of Arcanas aside from the aforementioned such as Strength and Moon." - he called forth Siegfried. - "Siegfried is of the Strength Arcana which means I am highly compatible with him, but..." - he called forth the snowman Mitsuru mentioned before, Jack Frost. - "Jack Frost is of the Lovers Arcana..."

"According to Aigis it's from the Magician."

"Is that so? Well, in my case he is from the Lovers." - he continued on. - "My compatibility with Jack Frost isn't utterly terrible but but it's not good. When Persona users like myself have non-compatible Personas their attributes go down and spells are harder to use exhausting the user more than it normally should."

"If you weren't so much of a stuck up prick then that would be different, ho!" - said... Jack Frost? Mitsuru's eyes widened.

"Silence!" - Nanjo punched the snowman causing it to disappear.

"W-what? D-did the Persona just...?" - she was out of breath, since when do Personas talk? This was too much now.

"Just ignore him. I assume your Persona does not talk?"

"No! Why would they!?" - she was way too shocked, Nanjo was way to different from her group of Persona users. It felt like a whole different world.

"Hmm... How fortunate, they tend to go into discussions... all 20 of them... it's tiresome, mostly Jack Frost who initiates them." - Mitsuru saw the frustration in Nanjo's eyes. She was at a loss of words, the confusion must have made her regain her composure.

"Then... why do you have it?" - Nanjo looked away in embarrassment.

"... It was the only Persona available with ice invulnerability, I lost the one I was compatible with in a bet with a friend." - Naoya was great at poker, Nanjo once suspected that he was a gambler in high school since he always won in the casinos all around Mikage-cho... which made him wonder if that was the reason he went on that journey.

"... I see..." - no, she was mostly confused.

"Either way, that's how our powers work. We have certain compabilities with certain Arcanas and we have a wider 'room' for Personas to wield."

"How many?"

"At the age of 17 I could only carry 3." - he chuckled at the thought of him struggling to change Personas back then. - "... 4 years later I managed to carry more than 15 of them. Right now I have 20 with me but I believe I can carry more."

"He has 20 Personas with him!?" - Mitsuru thought, she was surprised at the grand ammount of arsenal Nanjo had with him... he could stand against anything if he wished to, she couldn't help but think how incredible he was.

"I do wish I had your creativity, however."

"What do you mean?"

"The first time we fought you defeated me by using the ice block I sliced with Yamaoka by keeping control of them, using the whip of your Persona as a rope and a shield, I have to say that I admire your mind and how you use the only Persona that is available to you to its full potential." - he smiled at Mitsuru.

"Oh... thank you." - she couldn't help but blush at such a statement from Nanjo, she knew he was being honest.

The other Persona users he knew that were as creative as Mitsuru were Naoya, Elly, Tatsuya, Katsuya and Baofu; others such as Yukino, Mark and Ulala used brute force and while Reiji was the same he also used tricks like distracting the enemy and attacking from behind... Yuka was just reckless so she just followed orders from Nanjo, Naoya or Yukino. Maya, however, didn't attack as much just like Maki but both were highly capable due to their magic skills and the former's Persona, Artemis, who conviniently could reflect all sorts of hostile magic spells... even Megido spells.

"This is an interesting talk... sharing information, but you came to talk about something else and not just what these documents say."

"Indeed, I did share information with you of my power for a purpose but what I came here to do was to warn you."

"Warn me...?" - a warning... was this a threat? No, she dismissed the idea as Nanjo wasn't showing any sign of hostility but she felt a chill run down her spine for some reason.

Nanjo looked down at his feet with a somber expression.

"I will ask you, once again, please do not dwell into my matters anymore."

"... Nanjo... I have to destroy those files, if they fall to wrong hands more problems will arise, I need to do this."

"There is where our ideas clash, I cannot let you do it... I need Kandori's data for now, please do not seek them anymore." - his glare was intense, not even Mitsuru could pull such a stare on others and said others, like Akihiko, were already mildly scared of her.

"Why is it that you need them so much for? You already know the conse-"

"I do!" - Nanjo was always such a calm individual, him snapping was something very new to Mitsuru. - "But even so... I need them for something else, I swear it is not for wrongful doings." - he was dead serious on his words, such nobility radiated from him that made Mitsuru be enthralled at such aura but even so...

"Very well... I will cease my mission on getting those documents."

"..." - he frowned once more like he did before. - "You..."

"Hmm?" - Mitsuru was playing with her fingernails, she realized whay she was doing and stopped.

"... I knew something was not well. You were playing with your fingernails again, Mitsuru." - he sighed in disappointment. He realized that something was not right after all and felt like a fool for it, he knew that Mitsuru played with her fingernails whenever she felt nervous, the first indicator was back in Mikage-cho before they fought and now it happened again.

"... What do you mean?" - he already knew her plan, she sent someone to retrieve Kandori's files back at his mansion. He felt like an idiot leaving the mansion alone.

"I knew it, words do not reach deaf ears." - he felt it, his contract with the demon Agathion was broken, the demon Tamaki lent to Nanjo was killed. - "You were too easy to convince." - He felt it when the demon was killed but he wasn't sure until he saw through Mitsuru's lies. - "Yamaoka!"

"Artemisia!" - their attacks clashed, this time he attacked first. In the end he will have to search those files again.


End file.
